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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROSE 
AND POETICAL WORKS OF 

JOHN MILTON 



•j^^yi^o 



AN INTRODUCTION 



PROSE AND POETICAL WORKS 

OF 

/ 

JOHN MILTON 

Comprising all the Autobiographic Passages in his Works, the more Explicit 
Presentations of his Ideas of True Liberty 

COM US, LYCIDAS, and SAMSON AGONISTES 

With Notes and Forewords 

BY 

HIRAM CORSON, LL.D. 

Professor of English Literature in the Cornell University 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 
1899 

All rights reserved 




4>- 



Wz^ 



42178 



Copyright, 1899, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



(5IJH 



Norfajoatj ^reas 

J. S. CuBhing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 






^^ 



Servant of God, well done ! Well hast thou fought 

The better fight, who single hast maintained 

Against revolted multitudes the cause 

Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms, 

And for the testimony of truth hast borne 

Universal reproach, far worse to bear 

Than violence; for this was all thy care — 

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds 

Judged thee perverse.' 

— Paradise Lost^ VI, 29-37. 

O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, 
O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages; 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, 
Tower as the deep-domed empyrean 
Rings to the roar of an angel onset — 
Me rather all that bowery lonehness. 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 
And bloom profuse and cedar arches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, 
W^here some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even.' 

— Tennyson. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction 

Milton's Autobiography 

From A Defence of the English People 

From Second Defence of the People of England 

To Charles Diodati {Elegia Prima) 

To Alexander Gill, Jr. (Familiar Letters, No. Ill 

To Thomas Young (Familiar Letters, No. IV.) 

To Charles Diodati {Elegia Sexta) 

Prolusiones qusedam Oratoriae 

To Father {Ad Patre7ji) .... 

English letter to a friend (unknown) who, it appears, had 

been calling him to account for his apparent indiffer 

ence as to his work in life 

Sonnet : On his having arrived at the age of twenty-three 
To Alexander Gill, Jr. (Familiar Letters, No. V.) 
To Charles Diodati (Familiar Letters, Nos. VI., VII.) . 
To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence (Familiar Letters 

No. VIII.) ... .... 

From Mansus, Latin poem addressed to Manso, Marquis of 

Villa 

"^^ From Areopagitica : a speech for the liberty of unlicensed 

printing 



PAGES 

xiii-xxxii 

1-103 

2-6 

6-27 

28-30 

30,31 

31 

33~35 
35-40 



40-43 
42, 43 
43-44 
44-46 

46 

47 
48,49 



X COi\ TENTS 

PAGES 

To Lucas Holstenius in the Vatican at Rome (Familiar Let- 
ters, No. IX.) 49. 50 

Epitaphium Damonis 50> 51 

From Of Reformation in England 52-54 

From Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence, etc. 54-56 
From The Reason of Church Government urged against 

Prelaty 56-65 

From Apology for Smectymnuus 65-S2 

To Carlo Dati, Nobleman of Florence (Familiar Letters, 

No. X.) 82-84 

Sonnet : On his Blindness 84, 85 

To the most distinguished Leonard Philaras, of Athens, Am- 
bassador from the Duke of Parma to the King of France 

(Familiar Letters, No. XIL) 85, 86 

To Henry Oldenburg, agent for the city of Bremen in Lower 
Saxony vi^ith the Commonwealth (Familiar Letters, No. 

XIV.) 87,88 

To Leonard Philaras, Athenian (Familiar Letters, No. XV.) 88-90 

Sonnet: To Cyriac Skinner 91 

Sonnet: On his deceased wife 91 

To the most accomplished Emeric Bigot (Familiar Letters, 

No. XXL) 92 

To Henry Oldenburg (Familiar Letters, No. XXIX.) . . 93 

From Considerations touching the Likeliest Means to remove 

Hirelings out of the Church (August, 1659) . . . 94-96 
Autobiographic passages in the Paradise Lost . . . 96-102 
To the very distinguished Peter Heimbach, Councillor to the 

Elector of Brandenburg (Famihar Letters, No. XXXI.) 102, 103 
Passages in Milton's prose and poetical works in which his idea 
of true liberty, individual, domestic, civil, political, and re- 
ligious, is explicitly set forth 104-125 



CONTENTS XI 

PAGES 

-^omus : a Masque presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the 

Earl of Bridgewater, then President of Wales . . , 126-164 

^/Jbycidas 165-179 

^Samson Agonistes 181-244 

Notes 245-303 



INTRODUCTION 

Milton's prose works are perhaps not read, at the present 
day, to the extent demanded by their great and varied merits, 
among which may be named their uncompromising advocacy 
of whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and 
of good report; their eloquent assertion of the inalienable 
rights of men to a wholesome exercise of their intellectual 
faculties, the right to determine for themselves, with all the 
aids they can command, what is truth and what is error; the 
right freely to communicate their honest thoughts from one 
to another, — rights which constitute the only sure and lasting 
foundation of individual, civil, political, and religious liberty; 
the ever-conscious sentiment which they exhibit, on the part 
of the poet, of an entire dependence upon 'that Eternal Spirit, 
who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends 
out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch 
and purify the lips of whom he pleases ' ; the ever-present 
consciousness they exhibit of that stewardship which every 
man as a probationer of immortality must render an account, 
according to the full measure of the talents with which he has 
been intrusted — of the sacred -obligation, incumbent upon 
every one, of acting throughout the details of life, private or 
public, trivial or momentous, 'as ever in his great Task- 
Master's eye.' 

Some of his poetical works are extensively 'studied ' in the 
schools, and a style study of some of his prose works is made 
in departments of rhetoric; but his prose works cannot be 
said to be much read in the best sense of the word, — that is. 



Xiv INTR OD UC TION 

with all the faculties alert upon the subject-matter as of prime 
importance, with an openness of heart, and with an accom- 
panying interest in the general loftiness of their diction; in 
short, as every one should train himself to read any great 
author, with the fullest loyalty to the author — by which is 
not meant that all his thoughts and opinions and beliefs are to 
be accepted, but that what they really are be adequately, or 
ad modum recipie?itis, apprehended; in other words, loyalty 
to an author means that the most favorable attitude possible 
for each and every reader be taken for the reception of his 
meaning and spirit. 

Mark Pattison, in his life of Milton, in the 'English Men 
of Letters,' while fully recognizing the grand features of the 
prose works as monuments of the English language, notwith- 
standing what he calls their 'asyntactic disorder,' undervalues, 
or rather does not value at all, Milton's services to the cause 
of political and religious liberty as a polemic prose writer, 
and considers it a thing to be much regretted that he engaged 
at all in the great contest for political, religious, and other 
forms of liberty. This seems to be the one unacceptable 
feature of his very able life of the poet. 'But for the Restora- 
tion, ' he says, 'and the overthrow of the Puritans, we should 
never have had the great Puritan epic' Professor Goldwin 
Smith, in his article in the New York Nation on Pattison's 
'Milton,' remarks: 'Looking upon the life of Milton the 
politician merely as a sad and ignominious interlude in the 
life of Milton the poet, Mr. Pattison cannot be expected to 
entertain the idea that the poem is in any sense the work of 
the politician. Yet we cannot help thinking that the tension 
and elevation which Milton's nature had undergone in the 
mighty struggle, together with the heroic dedication of his 
faculties to the most serious objects, must have had not a little 
to do both with the final choice of his subject and with the 



I 



INTR OD UC TION XV 

tone of his poem. "The great Puritan epic" could hardly 
have been written by any one but a militant Puritan.' 

Dr. Richard Garnett, in his 'Life of Milton,' pp. 68, 69, 
takes substantially the same view as does Professor Smith : 'To 
regret with Pattison that Milton should, at this crisis of the 
State, have turned aside from poetry to controversy, is to regret 
that "Paradise Lost" should exist. Such a work could not 
have proceeded from one indifferent to the public weal. . . . 
It is sheer literary fanaticism to speak with Pattison of "the 
prostitution of genius to political party." Milton is as much 
the idealist in his prose as in his verse; and although in his 
pamphlets he sides entirely with one of the two great parties 
in the State, it is not as its instrument, but as its prophet and 
monitor.' 

Milton was writing prose when, Mr. Pattison thinks, he 
should have been writing poetry, 'and that most ephemeral 
and valueless kind of prose, pamphlets, extempore articles on 
the topics of the day. He poured out reams of them, in sif?iple 
unconsciousness that they had no tJifiuence 'whatever on the 
current of events. ' 

But they certainly had an influence, and a very great influ- 
ence, on the current of events not many years after. The 
restoration of Charles IL did not mean that the work of 
Puritanism was undone, and that Milton's pamphlets were to 
be of no effect. It was in a large measure due to that work 
and to those pamphlets that in a few years — fourteen only 
after Milton's death — the constitutional basis of the monarchy 
underwent a quite radical change for the better, — a change 
which would have been a solace to Milton, if he could have 
lived to see it; and he could then have justly felt that he had 
contributed to the change. He would have been but eighty 
years old, if he had lived till the revolution of 1688. 

A man constituted as Milton was could not have kept him- 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

self apart from the great conflicts of his time. He was a 
patriot in every fibre of his being. He realized in the culti- 
vation of himself his definition of education, given in his 
tractate J_Of_Education. To Master S. Hartlib ' : 'I call a 
complete and generous education that which fits a man to 
perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, 
both private and public, of peace and war.' Of course he 
did not mean that that was all of education. And in his 
'Areopagitica,' he says, after defining 'the true warfaring 
Christian,' * I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, 
unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her 
adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal 
garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.' 

Although the direct subjects of his polemic prose works 
may not have an interest for the general reader at the present 
day, they are all, independently of their direct subjects, 
charged with 'truths that perish never,' most vitally expressed. 
And this is as true of the 'Treatises on Divorce ' as it is of 
any of the other prose works. They are full of bright gems 
of enduring truth. 

Lord Macaulay's article on Milton, first published in the 
Edinburgh Review for August, 1825, is a brilliant and, in 
many respects, a valuable production, but he certainly says 
some things on the favorableness of an uncivilized age, and 
the unfavorableness of a civilized and learned age, to poetical 
creativeness, which are quite remote from the truth, and which 
Milton would certainly have regarded as abundantly absurd. 
So, too, he would have regarded what is said of the necessary 
struggle which a great poet must make against the spirit of 
his age. All these views are as completely at variance with 
Milton's own as are those of Mark Pattison in regard to 
^lilton the politician. 

Lord Macaulay's article was occasioned by the publication 



INTR OD UC TION XVll 

of an English version, by Rev. Charles Richard Sumner, after- 
wards Bishop of Winchester, of Milton's 'Treatise on Christian 
Doctrine, ' the existence of which was unknown up to the year 
1823, when the original manuscript in Latin was found in a 
press of the old State Paper office, in Whitehall. 

In this essay the author sets forth an opinion, still widely 
entertained, it may be, by a large number of cultivated people, 
namely, that as learning and general civilization, and science, 
with its applications to the physical needs and comforts 
of life, advance. Poetry recedes, and 'hides her diminished 
head,' and men become more and more subject to facts as 
facts, losing sight more and more of the poetical, that is, 
spiritual, relations of facts. 

'Milton knew,' Macaulay tells us, 'that his poetical genius 
derived no advantage from the civilization which surrounded 
him, or from the learning which he had acquired; and he 
looked back with something of regret to the ruder age of 
simple words and vivid impressions.' 

But it appears from Milton's own authority that he did not 
know this; that, on the contrary, he thought the poet should 
be master of all human learning, ancient and modern, should 
know many languages and many literatures; that 'by labour 
and intense study, which, ' he adds, ' I take to be my portion 
in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I 
might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as 
they should not willingly let it die.' Some of the autobio- 
graphic passages contained in this book will be found a suffi- 
cient refutation of what has been quoted from Macaulay. 

The view which Milton took of learning, and acted upon, 
is one which should be kept before the minds of students at 
the present day, when the tendency is so strong toward learn- 
ing for its own sake. As well talk of beefsteak for its own 
sake. Learning was with Milton a means of enlarging his 



xviii INTR OD UC TION 

capacity — a means toward being and doing. Mark Pattison 
well says, 'He cultivated, not letters, but himself, and sought 
to enter into possession of his own mental kingdom, not that 
he might reign there, but that he might royally use its re- 
sources in building up a work which should bring honour to 
his country, and his native tongue.' 

'Though we admire,' Lord Macaulay continues, 'those 
great works of imagination which have appeared in dark ages, 
we do not admire them the more because they have appeared 
in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most won- 
derful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced 
in a civilized age. We cannot understand why those who 
believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the 
earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule 
as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the 
phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the 
cause.' 

Further on he says: 'He who, in an enlightened and literary 
society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little 
child.' The most highly learned and cultured (eternalized), 
the most fully developed in every direction, are the most 
childlike, the least knowledge-proud, and the more spiritual 
vitality they have, the greater will be their humility and sim- 
plicity — the gates to true wisdom. 'He [the poet] must take 
to pieces, ' says Macaulay, 'the whole web of his mind. ' Rather 
a difficult piece of unravelling to impose upon the poor fellow ! 
'He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps 
constituted hitherto his chief title of superiority.' Oh, who 
would be a poet in a civilized age ! 'His very talents will be 
a hindrance to him.' What an irredeemable numskull he 
would have a poet to be! According to this doctrine, our 
institutions for feeble-minded children are likely to send forth 
the best poets into the world. 'His difficulties will be pro- 



INTRODUCTION xix 

portioned to his proficiency in the pursuits which are fashion- 
able among his contemporaries, and that proficiency will in 
general be proportioned to the vigor and activity of his mind. 
. . . We have seen in our own time, great talents, intense 
labor, and long meditation, employed in this struggle against 
the spirit of the age, and employed, we will not say absolutely 
in vain, but with dubious success and feeble applause.' 

Of all the flimsy theories in regard to the conditions of 
poetic creativeness that the mind of man could devise, this is 
certainly the flimsiest. It is only necessary to give a hasty 
glance at the works of those poets who are regarded as Masters 
of Song in the various literatures of the ancient and the 
modern world, to learn the secret of their vitality and power 
— that secret being, first, that they all possessed the best 
knowledge and learning of their times and places; and, 
secondly, that they all held the widest and most intimate 
relations with their several ages and countries, and drank 
deepest of, and most intensely reflected, the spirit of those 
ages and countries. If Shakespeare was not a learned man, 
he was the best educated man that ever lived. He had a ful- 
ness of life, intellectual and spiritual, and an easy command 
of all his faculties, to which but few of the sons of men have 
ever attained; and he lived in an age the most favorable in 
human history for the exercise of dramatic genius, and an age, 
on the whole, more civilized than any that had ever preceded it. 

No true poet could live in any age without imbibing and 
reflecting its spirit, and that to a much greater degree than 
other men. For the poetic nature is distinguished from 
ordinary natures by its greater impressibility and its keener, 
more penetrating insight, and to suppose that a poet can keep 
apart from the spirit of his age and the state of society around 
him is to lose sight of the very differetitia of the poetic nature, 
and implicitly to admit its feebleness. In one respect he may 



XX INTRODUCTION 

be said to keep apart from his age, in the sense of rejecting, 
in having no affinities for, what in it is ephemeral, while 
appropriating what of vital and eternal is in it. His affinities, 
by virtue of his poetic nature, are for what is enduring in the 
transient. And every age must have the vital and eternal in 
it, as the vital and eternal are omnipresent at all times and in 
all places. 

The great poet is great because he is intensely individual^ 
and there can be no intense individuality, paradoxical as it 
may appear, that is not subject, in a more than ordinary 
degree, to impressions of time and place. An individual in 
the fullest sense of the word, one who legitimates, as it were, 
in the eyes of his country or his age, his decisive influence 
over its destiny, is generally characterized, not so much by 
his rejecting power, though he will always, and necessarily, 
have this in a high degree, as by his appropriating power. 
He brings to the special unity of his nature all that that 
nature, in its healthiest activity, can assimilate, and throws 
off only the to him non-assimilable dross of things. The more 
complete his life becomes, the more it is bound up with what 
surrounds it, and he is susceptible of impressions the more 
numerous and the more profound. 

The greater impressibility (spiritual sensitiveness) and its 
resultant, the keener, more penetrating insight ('the vision 
and the faculty divine '), which preeminently distinguish poetic 
genius from ordinary natures, render great poets the truest 
historians of their times and the truest prophets. The poetic 
and dramatic literature of a people is a mirror in which is most 
clearly reflected their real and essential life. History gives 
rather their phenomenal life. It is the essential spirit only of 
an age, the permanent, the absolute, in it, as assimilated and 
* married to immortal verse ' by a great poet, that can retain a 
hold upon the interests and sympathies of future generations. 



IN TR OD UC TION XXI 



Milton was most emphatically a man of his age, and its 
clearest reflector, sustaining to it the most intimate and sym- 
pathetic and intensely active relationship; and, of all that was 
enduring in it, his works, both prose and poetical, are the 
best existing exponent. His intimate relationship with his 
age has been set forth in Dr. Masson's exhaustive and grandly 
monumental work, in six large octavo volumes, 'The Life of 
John Milton: narrated in connexion with the political, ec- 
clesiastical, and literary history of his time.' No other poet 
in universal literature, unless Dante be an exception, ever 
sustained such a relationship to the great movements of his 
time and country that an exhaustive biography of him would 
need to be, to the same extent, 'narrated in connexion with 
the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of his time.' 

Milton might justly and proudly have said of himself, with 
reference to the fierce political and ecclesiastical conflicts of 
his time, ' quorum pars magna fui.' And who can doubt that 
by these conflicts, and even, also, by his loss of sight therein, 
he was tempered to write the 'Paradise Lost,' the 'Paradise 
Regained,' and the 'Samson Agonistes' ? He might have 
written some other great work, if he had kept himself apart 
from these conflicts, as Pattison thinks he ought to have done, 
but he certainly could not have written the 'Paradise Lost.' 
Of the principles involved in the great contest for civil and 
religious liberty his prose works are the fullest exponent. In 
the 'Paradise Lost' can be seen the influence of his classical 
and Italian studies. Homer and Virgil and Dante are in it, 
but its essential, vitalizing, controlling spirit is that of a 
refined exalted Puritanism, freed from all that was in it of 
the contingent and the accidental; and thus that spirit will be 
preserved for ever in the pure amber of the poem. 

It was not within the scope of this little book, as a primary 
introduction to the study of Milton, to include any extended 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

presentation of the 'Paradise Lost.' But two grand features 
may be alluded to here. It is, in some respects, one of the 
most educating of English poems. The grand feature of the 
poem, that feature which distinguishes it from all other works 
of genius, both ancient and modern, is its essential, constitu- 
tional sublimity. So universally has this feature been recog- 
nized as peculiar to the poem, that the word Miltonic has 
become synonymous with the sublime. The loftiness of the 
diction, which is without all touch of bombast, every sympa- 
thetic reader must feel to be an emanation from the august 
personality of the poet. There is no perceptible strain any- 
where, as there is no perceptible lapse of power, on the part 
of the poet. He keeps ever up to the height of his great 
argument. To come into the fullest possible sympathetic 
relationship with the poem's constitutional sublimity, to be 
impressed by its loftiness of diction, by the contriving spirit 
of its eloquence, are educating experiences of the highest 
order — experiences which imply an exercise, most vitalizing 
and uplifting, of the reader's higher organs of apprehension 
and discernment. The theology of the poem need not obstruct 
for any one these educating influences. They are quite inde- 
pendent of the theology, as are the educating influences of the 
'Divina Commedia ' independent of its mediaeval Catholicism. 
The absolute man was in the ascendent in both Dante and 
Milton; and by virtue of that ascendency, they are, and ever 
will continue to be, great educating personalities, whatever 
false science and false opinions on various subjects are em- 
bodied in their works, and however much the world's faith 
in things which they most vitally believed may decline and 
entirely cease to be. Their personalities and their works are 
consubstantial. This fact — an immortal fact — was, perhaps, 
not taken sufficient account of by Mark Pattison when he wrote 
in his 'Life of Milton ' that 'the demonology of the poem has 



INTR OD UC TION XXlli 

already, with educated readers, passed from the region of fact 
into that of fiction. Not so universally, but with a large 
number of readers, the angelology can be no more than what 
the critics call machinery. And it requires a violent effort 
from any of our day to accommodate our conceptions to the 
anthropomorphic theology of "Paradise Lost." Were the 
sapping process to continue at the same rate for two more 
centuries, the possibility of epic illusion would be lost to the 
whole scheme and economy of the poem.' But there is a 
power in 'Paradise Lost' which is, and ever will be, inde- 
pendent of all manner of obsolete beliefs. 

Both the 'Paradise Lost' and the 'Divina Commedia' be- 
long, in a supereminent degree, to what Thomas De Quincey 
calls, in his 'Essay on Pope,' the literature of power, as dis- 
tinguished from the literature of knowledge ; and, as a conse- 
quence, the statement of Mark Pattison that 'there is an 
element of decay and death in poems which we vainly style 
immortal,' is not applicable to them. By the literature of 
power is meant that which is, in whatever form, an adequate 
embodiment of eternal verities — verities of the human soul 
and of the divine constitution of things, and their mutual 
adaptation, however much the former may be estranged from 
the latter. Such embodiment will maintain its individual 
existence. 

'In that great social order, which collectively we call litera- 
ture,' says De Quincey, 'there may be distinguished two 
separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable 
severally of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for recip- 
rocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge, 
and, secondly, the literature oi power. The function of the 
first is to teach ; the function of the second is to move. . . . 
The first speaks to the viei-e discursive understanding; the 
second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher under- 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

standing or reason, but always through affections of pleasure 
and sympathy. . . . Whenever we talk in ordinary language 
of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand 
the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. 
But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very 
high place in human interests, that it is never absolutely novel 
to the meanest of minds: it exists eternally by way of germ or 
latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be 
developed, but never to be planted. To be capable of trans- 
plantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on 
a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth, 
namely, power or deep sympathy with truth.' 

By the truth which 'is never absolutely novel to the meanest 
of minds,' De Quincey means absolute, eternal truth, inherent 
in the human soul, as distinguished from relative, temporal 
truth, the former being more or less 'cabined, cribbed, con- 
fined ' in all men. As Paracelsus is made to express it, in 
Browning's poem 'Paracelsus,' 'There is an inmost centre in 
us all, where truth abides in fulness; . . . and "to know" 
rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned 
splendor may escape, than in effecting entry for a light sup- 
posed to be without. ' 

To continue with De Quincey: 'What you owe to Milton 
[and he has the 'Paradise Lost' specially in his mind] is not 
any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but 
a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what 
you owe \% power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own 
latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse 
and each separate influx is a step upwards — a step ascending 
as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes 
above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to 
last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise 
you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very 



INTR OD UC TION XXV 

yfr^/step in power is a flight — is an ascending into another 
element where earth is forgotten. . . . The very highest work 
that has ever existed in the literature of knowledge is but 
a p7'ovisional work : a book upon trial and sufferance, and 
quamdiu bene se gesserii. Let its teaching be even partially 
revised, let it be but expanded, nay, even let its teaching be 
but placed in a better order, and instantly it is superseded. 
Whereas the feeblest works in the literature of power, surviving 
at all, survive as finished and unalterable amongst men. For 
instance, the "Principia" of Sir Isaac Newton was a bock 
militant on earth from the first. In all stages of its progress 
it would have to fight for its existence; first, as regards abso- 
lute truth; secondly, when that combat is over, as regards its 
form or mode of presenting the truth. And as soon as a La 
Place, or anybody else, builds higher upon the foundations 
laid by this book, effectually he throws it out of the sunshine 
into decay and darkness; by weapons won from this book he 
superannuates and destroys this book, so that soon the name 
of Newton remains as a mere nominis umbra, but his book, as 
a living power, has transmigrated into other forms. Now, on 
the contrary, the "Iliad," the "Prometheus" of ^schylus, — 
the "Othello" or "King Lear," — the "Hamlet" or "Mac- 
beth," — and the "Paradise Lost," are not militant, but tri- 
umphant forever as long as the languages exist in which they 
speak or can be taught to speak. They never can transmigrate 
into new incarnations. ... All the literature of knowledge 
builds only ground-nests, that are swept away by floods, or 
confounded by the plough; but the literature of power builds 
nests in aerial altitudes of temples, sacred from violation, or 
of forests inaccessible to fraud.' 

I would not give these extended quotations from De Quincey 
were it not that there may be many students who will read this 
book, and who will not have access to the works of De 



XXVI INTR OD UC TION 

Quincey. Those who have, should read all that he says on the 
subject. The distinction which he makes between the litera- 
ture of knowledge and the literature of power was never before 
so clearly and eloquently made, and it is a distinction which 
needs to be especially emphasized in these days o'f excessive 
knowledge-mongery, apart from education. Literature is 
largely made in the schools a knowledge subject. The great 
function of literature, namely, to bring into play the spiritual 
faculties, is very inadequately recognized, and the study of 
English Literature is made too much an objective job — the 
fault of teachers, not students. When the literature is studied 
as a life-giving power, students are always more interested 
than when everything else except the one thing needful re- 
ceives attention, — the sources of works of genius, the influ- 
ences under which they were produced, their relations to 
history and to time and place, and whatever else may be made 
to engage the minds of students in the absence of the teacher's 
ability to bring them into a sympathetic relationship with the 
informing life of the works 'studied ' — with that which con- 
stitutes their absolute power. 

Another important feature of the 'Paradise Lost' to which 
I would call attention, and of which much should be made in 
the study of the poem, as a condition of assimilating its edu- 
cating power, is the verse, which more fully realizes Words- 
worth's definition and notion of harmonious verse, given by 
Coleridge in the third of his 'Satyrane's Letters,' than any 
other blank verse in the language. The definition, it is evi- 
dent, was meant to apply more particularly to non-dramatic 
blank verse. Wordsworth's definition is, as given by Coleridge, 
that 'harmonious verse consists (the English iambic blank 
verse above all) in the apt arrangement of pauses and cadences 
and the sweep of whole paragraphs, 



INTR OD UC TlOiV XXvii 

" with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out," 

and not in the even flow, much less in the prominence or 
antithetic vigor of single lines, which are indeed injurious to 
the total effect, except where they are introduced for some 
specific purpose.' 

In my ^Primer of English Verse' (Ginn & Co., Boston), I 
have presented the two grand features of Milton's blank verse, 
namely: (i) The melodious variety of his cadences closing 
within verses, this being one of the essentials of 'true musical 
delight ' which Milton mentions, in his remarks on ^^he 
Verse,' 'the sense variously drawn out from one verse into 
another ' ; and (2) the melodious and harmonious grouping of 
verses into what may, with entire propriety, be called stanzas 
— stanzas which are more organic than the uniformly con- 
structed stanzas of rhymed verse. The latter must be more or 
less artificial, by reason of the uniformity which is maintained. 
But the stanzas of Milton's blank verse are waves of melody 
and harmony which are larger or smaller, and with ever varied 
cadences, according to the propulsion of the thought and 
feeling which produces them, which propulsion may be sus- 
tained through a dozen verses or more, or may expend itself 
in two or three. No other blank verse in the language exhibits 
such a masterly skill in the variation of its pauses — pauses, 
I mean, where periodic groups, or logical sections of groups, 
terminate after, or within, it may be, the first, second, third, 
or fourth foot of a verse. There are five cases where the 
termination is within the fifth foot. 

Stanza is quite exclusively applied to uniform groups of 
rhymed verses, but it can be with equal propriety applied to 
the varied groups of blank verses, especially those of the 
'Paradise Lost.' For the proper appreciation of the indi- 
vidual verses in Milton's blank verse, they must be read in 



XXVlll INTRODUCTION 

groups, — a group sometimes, perhaps generally, beginning 
within a verse and ending within a verse. These groups are 
due to the unifying action of feeling, just as much as rhymed 
stanzas are, and, indeed, often, if not generally, more so. 

The autobiographical passages which have been brought 
together from the prose and poetical works, occupying 103 
pages of the book, exhibit the man, Milton, better than could 
any regular biography of the same extent. The latter could 
give more of the details of his outward life and experiences, 
but could not so reflect his personality, his inmost being. He 
was most emphatically 2^ person. He realized in himself what 
is expressed in the following verses from Tennyson's 'CEnone ' : 

* Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
Yet not for power (power of herself 
Would come uncalled for), but to live by law, 
Acting the law we live by without fear; 
And, because right is right, to follow right 
"Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.* 

He also realized in himself what he says in his 'Areopa- 
gitica' : 'He that can apprehend and consider vice with all 
her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet dis- 
tinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the 
true warfaring Christian. ' 

What he says of himself in reply to the base and scurrilous 
and utterly unfounded charges against his private character is 
more than what Mark Pattison truly characterizes as *a superb 
and ingenuous egotism ' ; is more than an apologia pro vita 
sua ; it was also prompted by the consideration that what he 
was agonizingly contending for in the cause of civil, political, 
and religious liberty might suffer, if his private character were 
not freed from the charges made against it. In the extended 
autobiographical passage in the 'Second Defence of the People 



INTR OD UCTION xxix 

of England,' he assigns two other reasons for acquitting him- 
self of the charges made against his private character, namely, 
*that those illustrious worthies, who are the objects of my 
praise, may know that nothing could afflict me with more 
shame than to have any vices of mine diminish the force or 
lessen the value of my pangeyric upon them; and that the 
people of England, whom fate or duty, or their own virtues, 
have incited me to defend, may be convinced from the purity 
and integrity of my life, that my defence, if it do not redound 
to their honour, can never be considered as their disgrace.' 

A noble motive nobly presented ! 

There are no authors in the literature more distinctly re- 
vealed in their writings than is John Milton. His personality 
is felt in his every production, poetical and prose, and felt 
almost as much in the earliest as in the latest period of his 
authorship. And there is no epithet more applicable to his 
personality than the epithet august. He is therefore one of 
the most educating of authors, in the highest sense of the word, 
that is, educating in the direction of sanctified character. 

• 'Tis human fortune's happiest height to be 
A spirit melodious, lucid, poised, and whole : 
Second in order of felicity 

I hold it, to have walked with such a soul.' 

The prime value attaching to the prose works of Milton at 
the present day is their fervent exposition of true freedom, — 
a freedom which involves a deep sympathy with truth; a 
freedom which is induced by a willing and, in its final result, 
a spontaneous obedience to one's higher nature. Without 
such obedience no one can be truly free. Outward freedom, 
so called, may only afford an opportunity to one with evil 
inward tendencies to become, morally, an invertebrate. Lord 
Byron speaks of his Lara as 



XXX INTR OD UC TION 

* Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, 
Lord of himself ; that heritage of woe, 
That fearful empire which the human breast 
But holds to rob the heart within of rest ! — 
With none to check, and few to point in time 
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime.' 

There is more outward freedom at the present time than 
there was ever before, perhaps, in the world's history, and the 
temptations which it involves can be adequately resisted only 
by the subjective freedom which Milton so strenuously advo- 
cated. His ideas of all kinds of true freedom (explicit 
expressions of which have been brought together in the second 
section of this book) need to be instilled into all young minds, 
first, for their own intrinsic value, and, secondly, as a means 
— the sole means — of checking the present and ever increas- 
ing tendency toward unrestrained desires, toward what many 
mistake for true freedom, namely, license. Of such, Milton 
says, in one of his sonnets, 

' License they mean when they cry liberty; 
For who loves that must first be wise and good.' 

The passage on Discipline (pp. 108-111) from 'The Reason 
of Church Government urged against Prelaty,' should be 
learned by heai't (in the vital sense of the phrase, not in the 
sense of merely memorizing) by all young people in our 
schools. Everything should be done to induce a sympathetic 
assimilation on their part of the lofty utterances in this passage 
on Discipline, 'whose golden surveying rod,' says Milton, 
'marks out and measures every quarter and circuit of New 
Jerusalem.' 

The translations (not acknowledged in the text) of the two 
Latin poems addressed to the poet's Anglo Italian friend, 
Charles Diodati i^ Elegia Prima. Ad Carolum Diodatu??i,' 
p. 28, and ^ Elegia Sexta. Ad Carolum Diodatum, ruri com- 



INTR OD UCTION XXXI 

moranfem.' p. 31), and of the Familiar Letters (^ Epistolce 
Familiares'), Nos. IIL-X., XIL, XIV., XXL, XXIX., and 
XXXI. are by Dr. Masson. His translations of the latter are 
much closer to the meaning and tone of the original than 
those by Robert Fellowes, given in the Bohn edition of the 
prose works, which hardly warrant the characterization of 
them by the editor, J. A. St. John, as * the very elegant transla- 
tion of Mr. Fellowes, of Oxford, who, in most instances, has 
happily and with much feeling entered into and expressed 
the views of Milton.' The translation of No. XV. of the 
Familiar Letters, *To Leonard Philaras, Athenian,' is by my 
colleague, Professor Charles E. Bennett. 

Students who are sufficiently good Latin scholars should 
read Milton's Latin poems in the original, especially the '/// 
Quintum Novembris : anno cetatis 17,' the ^ Ad Fatreni,' and 
the ^ Epitaphium Damonis.' The ^ In Quintum Novembris'' (On 
the fifth of November, that is, the anniversary of the discovery 
of the Gunpowder Plot) is described by Masson as 'one of the 
very cleverest and most poetical of all Milton's youthful pro- 
ductions, and certainly one of the most characteristic' The 
^ Epitaphium Damonis ' has been admirably edited with notes 
by C. S. Jerram, M.A. Trin. Coll. Oxon., along with 'Lycidas.' 

The student should first read carefully all the selections, 
prose and poetical, without referring to the notes. Notes are 
a necessary evil, and should not be read until after a requisite 
general impression has been received from an independent 
reading; often two or more independent readings should pre- 
cede any attention to explanatory notes. Even such a poem 
as Browning's 'The Ring and the Book,' abounding as it does 
in out of the way allusions, difficult syntactical constructions, 
etc., requiring explanation, should be so read. The student 
would thus get a better impression of the poem as a whole, and 
would derive from it a greater pleasure (the pleasure resulting 



XXXll INTRODUCTION- 

from the less interrupted exercise of his higher faculties) than 
if he should read it at first with the aid of abundant notes ex- 
planatory of details. A special attention to the details should 
be given only after the reader has, in a general way, taken in 
the articulating thought and the informing life of the poem. 

There are thousands of allusions in the 'Paradise Lost' 
which a reader might not know, and yet be able to read the 
whole poem for the first time and enjoy it, and, what is all- 
important, be uplifted by it, without a single explanatory note. 

The portrait of Milton is from that first drawn in crayons 
by William Faithorne, and afterward engraved by him for the 
poet's 'History of Britain,' published in 1670. Underneath 
the original engraving is the inscription, ^Joan^iis Miltoni 
Effigies /Etat : 62. 1670. GuL Faithorne ad Vivum Delin. et 
Scidpsit' (John Milton's efifigy at the age of 62. 1670. Drawn 
from life and engraved by William Faithorne). 

Faithorne was the most distinguished portrait artist and 
engraver of the time. He appears to have especially excelled 
in crayon-drawing rather than in painting. His numerous 
engravings are both from his own studies and from those of 
other artists, especially of Vandyke. 'No one,' says Masson, 
'can desire a more impressive and authentic portrait of Milton 
in his later life. The face is such as has been given to no 
other human being; it was and is uniquely Milton's. Under- 
neath the broad forehead and arched temples there are the 
great rings of eye-socket, with the blind, unblemished eyes in 
them, drawn straight upon you by your voice, and speculating 
who and what you are; there is a severe composure in the 
beautiful oval of the whole countenance, disturbed only by 
the singular pouting round the rich mouth; and the entire 
expression is that of English intrepidity mixed with unutter- 
able sorrow.' H. C. 

Cascadilla Cottage, July, 1899. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

made up of all the more important autobiographical passages 
contained in his prose and poetical works 

It was found quite impossible to avoid somewhat of a jumble 
in bringing together the many autobiographic passages scattered 
throughout Milton's prose and poetical works. The passage in 
the ' Second Defence of the People of England/ in reply to 
the scurrilous abuse and utterly unfounded charges against his 
private character contained in the Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad 
Ccelufn, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos, 1652, which occasioned 
the 'Second Defence,' covers a larger period of Milton's life 
than any other, extending, as it does, from his birth to the 
time of his writing the 'Second Defence,' pubhshed in 1654, 
Milton being then in his forty-sixth year ; and as there is an 
autobiographic passage of some importance in the preface to 
the ' First Defence ' (published in 165 1), this passage and that in 
the ' Second Defence ' are kept together and given first. In the 
former he expresses his sense of the honor done him in his hav- 
ing been engaged to reply to the Defensio Regia pro Carolo /., 
by Salmasius ; and he evidently felt, and justly, too, that no 
abler man could have been engaged for that important func- 
tion. The extract from ' A Defence of the People of England' 
is from the translation ascribed by Milton's biographer, John 
Toland, to Mr. Washington, a gentleman of the Temple, and 
that from the ' Second Defence,' from the translation by Robert 

B I 



2 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Fellowes, A.M., Oxon. These are very free translations, and 
sometimes far from being adequate representations of Milton's 
thought. It is much to be regretted that Milton did not him- 
self make an English translation, for the general English reader, 
of these two noble Defences. 

The other autobiographic passages are given, as far as may 
be, in their chronological order, — that is, not always according 
to the dates of their composition, but according to their order 
in Milton's life. 

From the Preface to ^A Defence of the English People ' 

Although I fear, lest, if in defending the people of England, 
I should be as copious in words, and empty of matter, as 
most men think Salmasius has been in his defence of the 
king, I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a 
verbose and silly defender ; yet since no man thinks him- 
self obliged to make so much haste, though in the handling 
but of any ordinary subject, as not to premise some intro- 
duction at least, according as the weight of the subject 
requires ; if I take the same course in handhng almost the 
greatest subject that ever was (without being too tedious iri 
it) I am in hopes of attaining two things, which indeed 1 
earnestly desire : the one, not to be at all wanting, as far as 
in me lies, to this most noble cause and most worthy to be 
recorded to all future ages : the other, that I may appear to 
have myself avoided that frivolousness of matter, and re- 
dundancy of words, which I blame in my antagonist. For 
I am about to discourse of matters neither inconsiderable 
nor common, but how a most potent king, after he had 
trampled upon the laws of the nation, and given a shock to 
its religion, and begun to rule at his own will and pleasure, 
was at last subdued in the field by his own subjects, who 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 

had undergone a long slavery under him ; how afterwards 
he was cast into prison, and when he gave no ground, either 
by words or actions, to hope better things of him, was finally 
by the supreme council of the kingdom condemned to die, 
and beheaded before the very gates of the royal palace. I 
shall likewise relate (which will much conduce to the easing 
men's minds of a great superstition) by what right, especially 
according to our law, this judgment was given, and all these 
matters transacted ; and shall easily defend my vahant and 
worthy countrymen (who have extremely well deserved of all 
subjects and nations in the world) from the most wicked 
calumnies, both of domestic and foreign railers, and es- 
pecially from the reproaches of this most vain and empty 
sophist, who sets up for a captain and ringleader to all the 
rest. For what king's majesty sitting upon an exalted throne, 
ever shone so brightly, as that of the people of England then 
did, when, shaking off that old superstition, which had pre- 
vailed a long time, they gave judgment upon the king him- 
self, or rather upon an enemy who had been their king, 
caught as it were in a net by his own laws, (who alone of all 
mortals challenged to himself impunity by a divine right,) 
and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him, 
being guilty, which he would have inflicted upon any other? 
But why do I mention these things as performed by the 
people, which almost open their voice themselves, and testify 
the presence of God throughout? who, as often as it seems 
good to his infinite wisdom, uses to throw down proud and 
unruly kings, exalting themselves above the condition of 
human nature, and utterly to extirpate them and all their 
family. By his manifest impulse being set at work to re- 
cover our almost lost Hberty, following him as our guide, 
and adoring the impresses of his divine power manifested 
upon all occasions, we went on in no obscure, but an illus- 



4 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

trious passage, pointed out and made plain to us by God him- 
self. Which things, if I should so much as hope by any 
diligence or ability of mine, such as it is, to discourse of as I 
ought to do, and to commit them so to writing, as that per- 
haps all nations and all ages may read them, it would be a 
very vain thing in me. For what style can be august and mag- 
nificent enough, what man has ability sufficient to undertake 
so great a task ? Since we find by experience, that in so many 
ages as are gone over the world, there has been but here and 
there a man found, who has been able worthily to recount the 
actions of great heroes, and potent states ; can any man have 
so good an opinion of his own talents, as to think himself 
capable of reaching these glorious and wonderful works of 
Almighty God, by any language, by any style of his ? Which 
enterprise, though some of the most eminent persons in our 
commonwealth have prevailed upon me by their authority to 
undertake, and would have it be my business to vindicate with 
my pen against envy and calumny (which are proof against 
arms) those glorious performances of theirs, (whose opinion 
of me I take as a very great honour, that they should pitch 
upon me before others to be serviceable in this kind of those 
most valiant deliverers of my native country; and true it is, 
that from my very youth, I have been bent extremely upon 
such sort of studies, as inclined me, if not to do great things 
myself, at least to celebrate those that did,) yet as having no 
confidence in any such advantages, I have recourse to the 
divine assistance ; and invoke the great and holy God, the 
giver of all good gifts, that I may as substantially, and as truly, 
discourse and refute the sauciness and lies of this foreign 
declaimer, as our noble generals piously and successfully by 
force of arms broke the king's pride, and his unruly domineer- 
ing, and afterwards put an end to both by inflicting a memor- 
able punishment upon himself, and as thoroughly as a single 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 

person did with ease but of late confute and confound the king 
himself, rising as it were from the grave, and recommending 
himself to the people in a book published after his death, with 
new artifices and allurements of words and expressions. Which 
antagonist of mine, though he be a foreigner, and, though he 
deny it a thousand times over, but a poor grammarian ; yet not 
contented with a salary due to him in that capacity, chose to 
turn a pragmatical coxcomb, and not only to intrude in state- 
affairs, but into the affairs of a foreign state : though he brings 
along with him neither modesty, nor understanding, nor any 
other qualification requisite in so great an arbitrator, but sauci- 
ness, and a httle grammar only. Indeed if he had published 
here, and in English, the same things as he has now written in 
Latin, such as it is, I think no man would have thought it worth 
while to return an answer to them, but would partly despise 
them as common, and exploded over and over already, and 
partly abhor them as sordid and tyrannical maxims, not to be 
endured even by the most abject of slaves : nay, men that have 
sided with the king, would have had these thoughts of his book. 
But since he has swoln it to a considerable bulk, and dispersed 
it amongst foreigners, who are altogether ignorant of our affairs 
and constitution, it is fit that they who mistake them should be 
better informed ; and that he, who is so very forward to speak 
ill of others, should be treated in his own kind. If it be asked, 
why we did not then attack him sooner ? why we suffered him 
to triumph so long, and pride himself in our silence? For 
others I am not to answer ; for myself I can boldly say, that I 
had neither words nor arguments long to seek for the defence 
of so good a cause, if I had enjoyed such a measure of health, 
as would have endured the fatigue of writing. And being but 
weak in body, I am forced to write by piecemeal, and break 
off almost every hour, though the subject be such as requires 
an unintermitted study and intenseness of mind. But though 



6 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

this bodily indisposition may be a hindrance to me in setting 
forth the just praises of my most worthy countrymen, who have 
been the saviours of their native country, and whose exploits, 
worthy of immortality, are already famous all the world over ; 
yet I hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend them 
from the insolence of this silly little scholar, and from that 
saucy tongue of his, at least. Nature and laws would be in an 
ill case, if slavery should find what to say for itself, and liberty 
be mute ; and if tyrants should find men to plead for them, 
and they that can master and vanquish tyrants, should not be 
able to find advocates. And it were a deplorable thing indeed, 
if the reason mankind is endued withal, and which is the gift 
of God, should not furnish more arguments for men's preserva- 
tion, for their deliverance, and, as much as the nature of the 
thing will bear, for making them equal to one another, than 
for their oppression, and for their utter ruin under the domi- 
neering power of one single person. Let me therefore enter 
upon this noble cause with a cheerfulness grounded upon this 
assurance, that my adversary's cause is maintained by nothing 
but fraud, fallacy, ignorance, and barbarity ; whereas mine has 
light, truth, reason, the practice and the learning of the best 
ages of the world, on its side. 

From the ^Second Defence of the People of England in Reply to 
an Anonymous Libel, entitled '^The Cry of the Royal Blood 
to Heaven against the English Parricides " ' 

A grateful recollection of the divine goodness is the first of 
human obligations ; and extraordinary favours demand more 
solemn and devout acknowledgments : with such acknowledg- 
ments I feel it my duty to begin this work. First, because I 
was born at a time when the virtue of my fellow-citizens, far 
exceeding that of their progenitors in greatness of soul and 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7 

vigour of enterprise, having invoked Heaven to witness the 
justice of their cause, and been clearly governed by its direc- 
tions, has succeeded in delivering the commonwealth from the 
most grievous tyranny, and religion from the most ignominious 
degradation. And next, because when there suddenly arose 
many who, as is usual with the vulgar, basely calumniated the 
most illustrious achievements, and when one eminent above 
the rest, inflated with Hterary pride, and the zealous applauses 
of his partisans, had in a scandalous publication, which was 
particularly levelled against me, nefariously undertaken to plead 
the cause of despotism, I, who was neither deemed unequal 
to so renowned an adversary, nor to so great a subject, was 
particularly selected by the deliverers of our country, and by 
the general suffrage of the public, openly to vindicate the 
rights of the English nation, and consequently of liberty itself. 
Lastly, because in a matter of so much moment, and which 
excited such ardent expectations, I did not disappoint the 
hopes nor the opinions of my fellow-citizens ; while men of 
learning and eminence abroad honoured me with unmingled 
approbation ; while I obtained such a victory over my oppo- 
nent that, notwithstanding his unparalleled assurance, he was 
obliged to quit the field with his courage broken and his repu- 
tation lost ; and for the three years which he lived afterwards, 
much as he menaced and furiously as he raved, he gave me no 
further trouble, except that he procured the paltry aid of some 
despicable hirelings, and suborned some of his silly and ex- 
travagant admirers to support him under the weight of the 
unexpected and recent disgrace which he had experienced. 
This will immediately appear. Such are the signal favours 
which I ascribe to the divine beneficence, and which I thought 
it right devoutly to commemorate, not only that t might dis- 
charge a debt of gratitude, but particularly because they seem 
auspicious to the success of my present undertaking. For who 



8 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

is there, who does not identify the honour of his country with 
his own? And what can conduce more to the beauty or glory 
of one's country than the recovery not only of its civil but its 
religious Hberty? 



... I can easily repel any charge which may be adduced 
against me, either of want of courage, or want of zeal. For 
though I did not participate in the toils or dangers of the war, 
yet I was at the same time engaged in a service not less hazard- 
ous to myself and more beneficial to my fellow-citizens ; nor, in 
the adverse turns of our affairs, did I ever betray any symptoms 
of pusillanimity and dejection : or show myself more afraid than 
became me of malice or of death : For since from my youth 
I was devoted to the pursuits of literature, and my mind had 
always been stronger than my body, I did not court the labours 
of a camp, in which any common person would have been of 
more service than myself, but resorted to that employment in 
which my exertions were likely to be of most avail. Thus, 
with the better part of my frame I contributed as much as 
possible to the good of my country, and to the success of the 
glorious cause in which we were engaged ; and I thought that 
if God willed the success of such glorious achievements, it was 
equally agreeable to his will that there should be others by 
whom those achievements should be recorded with dignity and 
elegance ; and that the truth, which had been defended by 
arms, should also be defended by reason ; which is the best 
and only legitimate means of defending it. Hence, while I 
applaud those who were victorious in the field, I will not com- 
plain of the province which was assigned me ; but rather con- 
gratulate myself upon it, and thank the Author of all good for 
having placed me in a station, which may be an object of envy 
to others rather than of regret to myself. I am far from wish- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY g 

ing to make any vain or arrogant comparisons,, or to speak 
ostentatiously of myself; but, in a cause so great and glorious, 
and particularly on an occasion when I am called by the gen- 
eral suffrage to defend the very defenders of that cause, I can 
hardly refrain from assuming a more lofty and swelling tone 
than the simphcity of an exordium may seem to justify : and 
much as I may be surpassed in the powers of eloquence and 
copiousness of diction by the illustrious orators of antiquity, 
yet the subject of which I treat was never surpassed, in any age, 
in dignity or in interest. It has excited such general and such 
ardent expectation, that I imagine myself, not in the forum or 
on the rostra, surrounded only by the people of Athens or of 
Rome, but about to address in this, as I did in my former De- 
fence, the whole collective body of people, cities, states, and 
councils of the wise and eminent, through the wide expanse of 
anxious and listening Europe. I seem to survey, as from a 
towering height, the far extended tracts of sea and land, and 
innumerable crowds of spectators, betraying in their looks the 
liveliest interest, and sensations the most congenial with my 
own. Here I behold the stout and manly prowess of the Ger- 
mans disdaining servitude ; there the generous and hvely im- 
petuosity of the French ; on this side, the calm and stately 
valour of the Spaniard ; on that, the composed and wary mag- 
nanimity of the Italian. Of all the lovers of liberty and virtue, 
the magnanimous and the wise, in whatever quarter they may 
be found, some secretly favour, others openly approve ; some 
greet me with congratulations and applause ; others, who had 
long been proof against conviction, at last yield themselves 
captive to the force of truth. Surrounded by congregated mul- 
titudes, I now imagine that, from the columns of Hercules to 
the Indian Ocean, I behold the nations of the earth recovering 
that liberty which they so long had lost ; and that the people 
of this island are transporting to other countries a plant of 



lO MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

more beneficial qualities, and more noble growth, than that 
which Triptolemus is reported to have carried from region to 
region ; that they are disseminating the blessings of civilization 
and freedom among cities, kingdoms, and nations. Nor shall 
I approach unknown, nor perhaps unloved, if it be told that I 
am the same person who engaged in single combat that fierce 
advocate of despotism ; till then reputed invincible in the opin- 
ion of many, and in his own conceit ; who insolently challenged 
us and our armies to the combat ; but whom, while I repelled 
his virulence, I silenced with his own weapons ; and over 
whom, if I may trust to the opinions of impartial judges, I 
gained a complete and glorious victory. That this is the plain 
unvarnished fact appears from this : that, after the most noble 
queen of Sweden, than whom there neither is nor ever was a 
personage more attached to literature and to learned men, had 
invited Salmasius or Salmatia (for to which sex he belonged is 
a matter of uncertainty) to her court, where he was received 
with great distinction, my Defence suddenly surprised him in 
the midst of his security. It was generally read, and by the 
queen among the rest, who, attentive to the dignity of her sta- 
tion, let the stranger experience no diminution of her former 
kindness and munificence. But, with respect to the rest, if I 
may assert what has been often told, and was matter of public 
notoriety, such a change was instantly effected in the public 
sentiment, that he, who but yesterday flourished in the highest 
degree of favour, seemed to-day to wither in neglect ; and soon 
after receiving permission to depart, he left it doubtful among 
many whether he were more honoured when he came, or more 
disgraced when he went away ; and even in other places it is 
clear, that it occasioned no small loss to his reputation ; and 
all this I have mentioned, not from any futile motives of vanity 
or ostentation, but that I might clearly show, as I proposed in 
the beginning, what momentous reasons I had for commencing 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY II 

this work with an effusion of gratitude to the Father of the uni- 
verse. Such a preface was most honourable and appropriate, 
in which I might prove, by an enumeration of particulars, that 
I had not been without my share of human misery ; but that I 
had, at the same time, experienced singular marks of the divine 
regard ; that in topics of the highest concern, the most con- 
nected with the exigencies of my country, and the most benefi- 
cial to civil and religious liberty ; the supreme wisdom and 
beneficence had invigorated and enlarged my faculties, to de- 
fend the dearest interests, not merely of one people, but of the 
whole human race, against the enemies of human liberty ; as it 
were in a full concourse of all the nations on the earth : and I 
again invoke the same Almighty Being, that I may still be able, 
with the same integrity, the same diligence, and the same suc- 
cess, to defend those actions which have been so gloriously 
achieved ; while I vindicate the authors as well as myself, 
whose name has been associated with theirs, not so much for 
the sake of honour as disgrace, from unmerited ignominy and 
reproach. 



But the conflict between me and Salmasius is now finally ter- 
minated by his death ; and I will not write against the dead ; 
nor will I reproach him with the loss of Hfe as he did me with 
the loss of sight ; though there are some who impute his death 
to the penetrating severity of my strictures, which he rendered 
only the more sharp by his endeavours to resist. When he 
saw the work which he had in hand proceed slowly on, the 
time of reply elapsed, the public curiosity subsided, his fame 
marred, and his reputation lost ; the favour of the princes, 
whose cause he had so ill defended, alienated, he was de- 
stroyed, after three years of grief, rather by the force of depres- 
sion than disease. 



12 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



If I inveigh against tyrants, what is this to kings? whom I 
am far from associating with tyrants. As much as an honest 
man differs from a rogue, so much I contend that a king differs 
from a tyrant. Whence it is clear, that a tyrant is so far from 
being a king, that he is always in direct opposition to a king. 
And he who peruses the records of history, will find that more 
kings have been subverted by tyrants than by their subjects. 
He, therefore, who would authorize the destruction of tyrants, 
does not authorize the destruction of kings, but of the most 
inveterate enemies to kings. 



Let us now come to the charges which were brought against 
myself. Is there anything reprehensible in my manners or my 
conduct? Surely nothing. What no one, not totally divested 
of all generous sensibility, would have done, he reproaches me 
with want of beauty and loss of sight. 

* Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.' 

I certainly never supposed that I should have been obliged 
to enter into a competition for beauty with the Cyclops ; but 
he immediately corrects himself, and says, * though not indeed 
huge, for there cannot be a more spare, shrivelled, and blood- 
less form.' It is of no moment to say anything of personal 
appearance, yet lest (as the Spanish vulgar, implicitly confiding 
in the relations of their priests, believe of heretics) any one, 
from the representations of my enemies, should be led to 
imagine that I have either the head of a dog, or the horn of a 
rhinoceros, I will say something on the subject, that I may have 
an opportunity of paying my grateful acknowledgments to the 
Deity, and of refuting the most shameless lies. I do not be- 
lieve that I was ever once noted for deformity, by any one who 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY I 3 

ever saw me ; but the praise of beauty I am not anxious to 
obtain. My stature certainly is not tall ; but it rather approaches 
the middle than the diminutive. Yet what if it were diminu- 
tive, when so many men, illustrious both in peace and war, 
have been the same ? And how can that be called diminutive, 
which is great enough for every virtuous achievement? Nor, 
though very thin, was I ever deficient in courage or in strength ; 
and I was wont constantly to exercise myself in the use of the 
broadsword, as long as it comported with my habit and my 
years. Armed with this weapon, as I usually was, I should 
have thought myself quite a match for any one, though much 
stronger than myself ; and I felt perfectly secure against the 
assault of any open enemy. At this moment I have the same 
courage, the same strength, though not the same eyes ; yet so 
little do they betray any external appearance of injury, that 
they are as unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who most 
distinctly see. In this instance alone I am a dissembler against 
my will. My face, which is said to indicate a total privation of 
blood, is of a complexion entirely opposite to the pale and the 
cadaverous ; so that, though I am more than forty years old, there 
is scarcely any one to whom I do not appear ten years younger 
than I am ; and the smoothness of my skin is not, in the least, 
affected by the wrinkles of age. If there be one particle of 
falsehood in this relation, I should deservedly incur the ridicule 
of many thousands of my countrymen, and even many foreigners 
to whom I am personally known. But if he, in a matter so 
foreign to his purpose, shall be found to have asserted so many 
shameless and gratuitous falsehoods, you may the more readily 
estimate the quantity of his veracity on other topics. Thus 
much necessity compelled me to assert concerning my personal 
appearance. Respecting yours, though I have been informed 
that it is most insignificant and contemptible, a perfect mirror 
of the worthlessness of your character and the malevolence of 



14 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

your heart, I say nothing, and no one will be anxious that any- 
thing should be said. I wish that I could with equal facility 
refute what this barbarous opponent has said of my blindness ; 
but I cannot do it ; and I must submit to the affliction. It is 
not so wretched to be blind, as it is not to be capable of endur- 
ing blindness. But why should I not endure a misfortune which 
it behooves everyone to be prepared to endure if it should hap- 
pen ; which may, in the common course of things, happen to 
any man ; and which has been known to happen to the most 
distinguished and virtuous persons in history? Shall I mention 
those wise and ancient bards, whose misfortunes the gods are 
said to have compensated by superior endowments, and whom 
men so much revered, that they chose rather to impute their 
want of sight to the injustice of heaven than to their own want 
of innocence or virtue ? What is reported of the Augur Tire- 
sias is well known ; of whom Apollonius sung thus in his Ar- 
gonautica : 

' To men he dared the will divine disclose, 
Nor feared what Jove might in his wrath impose. 
The gods assigned him age, without decay, 
But snatched the blessing of his sight away.' 

But God himself is truth ; in propagating which, as men display 
a greater integrity and zeal, they approach nearer to the simili- 
tude of God, and possess a greater portion of his love. We 
cannot suppose the deity envious of truth, or unwilling that it 
should be freely communicated to mankind. The loss of sight, 
therefore, which this inspired sage, who was so eager in pro- 
moting knowledge among men, sustained, cannot be considered 
as a judicial punishment. Or shall I mention those worthies 
who were as distinguished for wisdom in the cabinet as for 
valour in the field ? And first, Timoleon of Corinth, who deliv- 
ered his city and all Sicily from the yoke of slavery ; than whom 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY I 5 

there never lived in any age a more virtuous man or a more 
incorrupt statesman : Next Appius Claudius, whose discreet 
counsels in the senate, though they could not restore sight to 
his own eyes, saved Italy from the formidable inroads of Pyr- 
rhus : then Caecilius Metellus the high-priest, who lost his sight, 
while he saved, not only the city, but the palladium, the protec- 
tion of the city, and the most sacred relics, from the destruc- 
tion of the flames. On other occasions Providence has indeed 
given conspicuous proofs of its regard for such singular exer- 
tions of patriotism and virtue ; what, therefore, happened to so 
great and so good a man, I can hardly place in the catalogue 
of misfortunes. Why should I mention others of later times, as 
Dandolo of Venice, the incomparable Doge ; or Zisca, the 
bravest leader of the Bohemians, and the champion of the 
cross ; or Jerome Zanchius, and some other theologians of 
the highest reputation? For it is evident that the patriarch 
Isaac, than whom no man ever enjoyed more of the divine re- 
gard, lived blind for many years ; and perhaps also his son 
Jacob, who was equally an object of the divine benevolence. 
And in short, did not our Saviour himself clearly declare that 
that poor man whom he restored to sight had not been born 
blind, either on account of his own sins or those of his progeni- 
tors? And with respect to myself, though I have accurately 
examined my conduct, and scrutinized my soul, I call thee, O 
God, the searcher of hearts, to witness, that I am not conscious, 
either in the more early or in the later periods of my life, of 
having committed any enormity which might deservedly have 
marked me out as a fit object for such a calamitous visitation. 
But since my enemies boast that this affliction is only a retri- 
bution for the transgressions of my pen, I again invoke the 
Almighty to witness, that I never, at any time, wrote anything 
which I did not think agreeable to truth, to justice, and to piety. 
This was my persuasion then, and I feel the same persuasion 



l6 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

now. Nor was I ever prompted to such exertions by the influ- 
ence of ambition, by the lust of lucre or of praise ; it was only 
by the conviction of duty and the feeling of patriotism, a dis- 
interested passion for the extension of civil and religious liberty. 
Thus, therefore, when I was publicly solicited to write a reply 
to the Defence of the royal cause, when I had to contend with 
the pressure of sickness, and with the apprehension of soon los- 
ing the sight of my remaining eye, and when my medical attend- 
ants clearly announced, that if I did engage in the work, it 
would be irreparably lost, their premonitions caused no hesita- 
tion and inspired no dismay. I would not have listened to the 
voice even of ^sculapius himself from the shrine of Epidaurus, 
in preference to the suggestions of the heavenly monitor within 
my breast ; my resolution was unshaken, though the alternative 
was either the loss of my sight, or the desertion of my duty : 
and I called to mind those two destinies, which the oracle of 
Delphi announced to the son of Thetis : 

* I by my Goddess-mother have been warned, 
The silver-footed Thetis, that o'er me 
A double chance of destiny impends : 
If here remaining, round the walls of Troy 
I wage the war, I ne'er shall see my home, 
But then undying glory shall be mine : 
If I return, and see my native land, 
My glory all is gone; but length of life 
Shall then be mine, and death be long deferred.' 

— Iliad, ix. 410-416. 

I considered that many had purchased a less good by a greater 
evil, the meed of glory by the loss of life ; but that I might pro- 
cure great good by little suffering ; that though I am blind, I 
might still discharge the most honourable duties, the perform- 
ance of which, as it is something more durable than glory, 
ought to be an object of superior admiration and esteem ; I 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ly 

resolved, therefore, to make the short interval of sight, which 
was left me to enjoy, as beneficial as possible to the public 
interest. Thus it is clear by what motives I was governed in 
the measures which I took, and the losses which I sustained. 
Let then the calumniators of the divine goodness cease to re- 
vile, or to make me the object of their superstitious imagina- 
tions. Let them consider, that my situation, such as it is, is 
neither an object of my shame nor my regret, that my resolu- 
tions are too firm to be shaken, that I am not depressed by 
any sense of the divine displeasure ; that, on the other hand, 
in the most momentous periods, I have had full experience of 
the divine favour and protection ; and that, in the solace and 
the strength which have been infused into me from above, I 
have been enabled to do the will of God ; that I may oftener 
think on what he has bestowed, than on what he has withheld ; 
that, in short, I am unwilling to exchange my consciousness of 
rectitude with that of any other person ; and that . I feel the 
recollection a treasured store of tranquillity and delight. But, if 
the choice were necessary, I would, sir, prefer my blindness to 
yours ; yours is a cloud spread over the mind, which darkens 
both the light of reason and of conscience ; mine keeps from my 
view only the coloured surfaces of things, while it leaves me at 
liberty to contemplate the beauty and stabihty of virtue and of 
truth. How many things are there besides which I would not 
willingly see ; how many which I must see against my will ; and 
how few which I feel any anxiety to see ! There is, as the 
apostle has remarked, a way to strength through weakness. Let 
me then be the most feeble creature alive, as long as that feeble- 
ness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immor- 
tal spirit ; as long as in that obscurity, in which I am enveloped, 
the light of the divine presence more clearly shines, then, in 
proportion as I am weak, I shall be invincibly strong ; and in 
proportion as I am blind, I shall more clearly see. Oh, that I 
c 



1 8 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

may thus be perfected by feebleness, and irradiated by obscu- 
rity ! And, indeed, in my blindness, I enjoy in no inconsidera- 
ble degree the favour of the Deity, who regards me with more 
tenderness and compassion in proportion as I am able to be- 
hold nothing but himself. Alas ! for him who insults me, who 
maligns and merits public execration ! For the divine law not 
only shields me from injury, but almost renders me too sacred 
to attack ; not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, 
as from the overshadowing of those heavenly wings which seem 
to have occasioned this obscurity ; and which, when occasioned, 
he is wont to illuminate with an interior light, more precious 
and more pure. To this I ascribe the more tender assiduities 
of my friends, their soothing attentions, their kind visits, their 
reverential observances ; . • • This extraordinary kindness 
which I experience, cannot be any fortuitous combination ; and 
friends, such as mine, do not suppose that all the virtues of a 
man are contained in his eyes. Nor do the persons of princi- 
pal distinction in the commonwealth suffer me to be bereaved 
of comfort, when they see me bereaved of sight, amid the exer- 
tions which I made, the zeal which I showed, and the dangers 
which I run for the liberty which I love. But, soberly reflecting 
on the casualties of human life, they show me favour and indul- 
gence, as to a soldier who has served his time, and kindly con- 
cede to me an exemption from care and toil. They do not 
strip me of the badges of honour which I have once worn ; they 
do not deprive me of the places of public trust to which I have 
been appointed ; they do not abridge my salary or emoluments ; 
which, though I may not do so much to deserve as I did for- 
merly, they are too considerate and too kind to take away ; and, 
in short, they honour me as much as the Athenians did those 
whom they determined to support at the pubhc expense in the 
Prytaneum. Thus, while both God and man unite in solacing 
me under the weight of my affliction, let no one lament my loss 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 9 

of sight in so honourable a cause. And let me not indulge in 
unavailing grief, or want the courage either to despise the re- 
vilers of my blindness, or the forbearance easily to pardon the 
offence. 



I must crave the indulgence of the reader if I have said 
already, or shall say hereafter, more of myself than I wish to 
say ; that, if I cannot prevent the blindness of my eyes, the 
oblivion or the defamation of my name, I may at least rescue 
my life from that species of obscurity, which is the associate of 
unprincipled depravity. This it will be necessary for me to do 
on more accounts than one ; first, that so many good and 
learned men among the neighbouring nations, who read my 
works, may not be induced by this fellow's calumnies to alter 
the favourable opinion which they have formed of me ; but 
may be persuaded that I am not one who ever disgraced beauty 
of sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the maxims of a free- 
man by the actions of a slave; and that the whole tenor of my 
life has, by the grace of God, hitherto been unsullied by enor- 
mity or crime. Next, that those illustrious worthies, who are 
the objects of my praise, may know that nothing could afflict 
me with more shame than to have any vices of mine diminish 
the force or lessen the value of my panegyric upon them ; and, 
lastly, that the people of England, whom fate, or duty, or their 
own virtues, have incited me to defend, may be convinced 
from the purity and integrity of my life, that my defence, if 
it do not redound to their honour, can never be considered as 
their disgrace. I will now mention who and whence I am. I 
was born in London, of an honest family ; my father was dis- 
tinguished by the undeviating integrity of his life ; my mother, 
by the esteem in which she was held, and the alms which she 
bestowed. My father destined me from a child to the pur- 



20 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

suits of literature ; and my appetite for knowledge was so 
voracious, that, from twelve years of age, I hardly ever left my 
studies, or went to bed before midnight. This primarily led to 
my loss of sight. My eyes were naturally weak, and I was 
subject to frequent headaches ; which, however, could not chill 
the ardour of my curiosity, or retard the progress of my 
improvement. My father had me daily instructed in the gram- 
mar-school, and by other masters at home. He then, after 
I had acquired a proficiency in various languages, and had 
made a considerable progress in philosophy, sent me to the 
University of Cambridge. Here I passed seven years in the 
usual course of instruction and study, with the approbation of 
the good, and without any stain upon my character, till I took 
the degree of Master of Arts. After this I did not, as this 
miscreant feigns, run away into Italy, but of my own accord 
retired to my father's house, whither I was accompanied by the 
regrets of most of the fellows of the college, who showed me 
no common marks of friendship and esteem. On my father's 
estate, where he had determined to pass the remainder of his 
days, I enjoyed an interval of uninterrupted leisure, which I 
entirely devoted to the perusal of the Greek and Latin classics ; 
though I occasionally visited the metropohs, either for the sake 
of purchasing books, or of learning something new in mathe- 
matics or in music, in which I, at that time, found a source of 
pleasure and amusement. In this manner I spent five years 
till my mother's death. I then became anxious to visit foreign 
parts, and particularly Italy. My father gave me his permis- 
sion, and I left home with one servant. On my departure, the 
celebrated Henry Wotton, who had long been king James's 
ambassador at Venice, gave me a signal proof of his regard, in 
an elegant letter which he wrote, breathing not only the warmest 
friendship, but containing some maxims of conduct which I 
found very useful in my travels. The noble Thomas Scuda- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 21 

more, king Charles's ambassador, to whom I carried letters of 
recommendation, received me most courteously at Paris. His 
lordship gave me a card of introduction to the learned Hugo 
Grotius, at that time ambassador from the queen of Sweden to 
the French court ; whose acquaintance I anxiously desired, and 
to whose house I was accompanied by some of his lordship's 
friends. A few days after, when I set out for Italy, he gave 
me letters to the English merchants on my route, that they 
might show me any civilities in their power. Taking ship at 
Nice, I arrived at Genoa, and afterwards visited Leghorn, Pisa, 
and Florence. In the latter city, which I have always more 
particularly esteemed for the elegance of its dialect, its genius, 
and its taste, I stopped about two months ; when I contracted 
an intimacy with many persons of rank and learning ; and was 
a constant attendant at their literary parties ; a practice which 
prevails there, and tends so much to the diffusion of knowledge, 
and the preservation of friendship. No time will ever abolish 
the agreeable recollections which I cherish of Jacopo Gaddi, 
Carlo Dati, Frescobaldi, Coltellini, Bonmattei, ChimentelH, 
Francini, and many others. From Florence I went to Siena, 
thence to Rome, where, after I had spent about two months in 
viewing the antiquities of that renowned city, where I experi- 
enced the most friendly attentions from Lucas Holstenius, and 
other learned and ingenious men, I continued my route to 
Naples. There I was introduced by a certain recluse, with 
whom I had travelled from Rome, to Giovanni Battista Manso, 
marquis of Villa, a nobleman of distinguished rank and author- 
ity, to whom Torquato Tasso, the illustrious poet, inscribed his 
book on friendship. During my stay, he gave me singular 
proofs of his regard : he himself conducted me around the city, 
and to the palace of the viceroy ; and more than once paid me 
a visit at my lodgings. On my departure he gravely apologized 
for not having shown me more civility, which he said he had 



22 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

been restrained from doing, because I had spoken with so little 
reserve on matters of religion. When I was preparing to pass 
over into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelligence which 
I received of the civil commotions in England made me 
alter my purpose ; for I thought it base to be travelling for 
amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for 
liberty at home. While I was on my way back to Rome, some 
merchants informed me that the English Jesuits had formed a 
plot against me if I returned to Rome, because I had spoken 
too freely on religion ; for it was a rule which I laid down to 
myself in those places, never to be the first to begin any con- 
versation on religion ; but if any questions were put to me 
concerning my faith, to declare it without any reserve or fear. 
I, nevertheless, returned to Rome. I took no steps to conceal 
either my person or my character ; and for about the space of 
two months I again openly defended, as I had done before, the 
reformed religion in the very metropolis of popery. By the 
favour of God, I got safe back to Florence, where I was 
received with as much affection as if I had returned to my 
native country. There I stopped as many months as I had 
done before, except that I made an excursion for a few days 
to Lucca ; and, crossing the Apennines, passed through Bologna 
and Ferrara to Venice. After I had spent a month in survey- 
ing the curiosities of this city, and had put on board a ship the 
books which I had collected in Italy, I proceeded through 
Verona and Milan, and along the Leman lake to Geneva. The 
mention of this city brings to my recollection the slandering 
More, and makes me again call the Deity to witness, that in all 
those places in which vice meets with so little discouragement, 
and is practised with so little shame, I never once deviated 
from the paths of integrity and virtue, and perpetually reflected 
that, though my conduct might escape the notice of men, it 
could not elude the inspection of God. At Geneva I held 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 23 

daily conferences with John Diodati, the learned professor 
of Theology. Then pursuing my former route through France, 
I returned to my native country, after an absence of one year 
and about three months ; at the time when Charles, having 
broken the peace, was renewing what is called the episcopal 
war with the Scots, in which the royalists being routed in the 
first encounter, and the EngHsh being universally and justly 
disaffected, the necessity of his affairs at last obliged him to 
convene a parliament. As soon as I was able, I hired a spa- 
cious house in the city for myself and my books ; where I again 
with rapture renewed my literary pursuits, and where I calmly 
awaited the issue of the contest, which I trusted to the wise 
conduct of Providence, and to the courage of the people. The 
vigour of the parliament had begun to humble the pride of the 
bishops. As long as the liberty of speech was no longer sub- 
ject to control, all mouths began to be opened against the 
bishops ; some complained of the vices of the individuals, 
others of those of the order. They said that it was unjust that 
they alone should differ from the model of other reformed 
churches ; that the government of the church should be accord- 
ing to the pattern of other churches, and particularly the word 
of God. This awakened all my attention and my zeal. I saw 
that a way was opening for the establishment of real liberty ; 
that the foundation was laying for the deliverance of man from 
the yoke of slavery and superstition ; that the principles of 
religion, which were the first objects of our care, would exert 
a salutary influence on the manners and constitution of the 
repubhc ; and as I had from my youth studied the distinctions 
between religious and civil rights, I perceived that if I ever 
wished to be of use, I ought at least not to be wanting to my 
country, to the church, and to so many of my fellow-Christians, 
in a crisis of so much danger; I therefore determined to 
rehnquish the other pursuits in which I was engaged, and to 



24 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

transfer the whole force of my talents and my industry to this 
one important object. I accordingly wrote two books to a 
friend concerning the reformation of the church of England. 
Afterwards, when two bishops of superior distinction vindicated 
their privileges against some principal ministers, I thought that 
on those topics, to the consideration of which I was led solely 
by my love of truth, and my reverence for Christianity, I 
should not probably write worse than those who were contend- 
ing only for their own emoluments and usurpations. I there- 
fore answered the one in two books, of which the first is 
inscribed. Concerning Prelatical Episcopacy, and the other 
Concerning the Mode of Ecclesiastical Government; and I 
replied to the other in some Animadversions, and soon after in 
an Apology. On this occasion it was supposed that I brought 
a timely succour to the ministers, who were hardly a match for 
the eloquence of their opponents ; and from that time I was 
actively employed in refuting any answers that appeared. 
When the bishops could no longer resist the multitude of their 
assailants, I had leisure to turn my thoughts to other subjects ; 
to the promotion of real and substantial liberty ; which is 
rather to be sought from within than from without ; and whose 
existence depends, not so much on the terror of the sword, as 
on sobriety of conduct and integrity of hfe. When, therefore, 
I perceived that there were three species of liberty which are 
essential to the happiness of social hfe — religious, domestic, 
and civil ; and as I had already written concerning the first, 
and the magistrates were strenuously active in obtaining the 
third, I determined to turn my attention to the second, or the 
domestic species. As this seemed to involve three material 
questions, the conditions of the conjugal tie, the education of 
the children, and the free publication of the thoughts, I made 
them objects of distinct consideration. I explained my senti- 
ments, not only concerning the solemnization of the marriage, 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 25 

but the dissolution, if circumstances rendered it necessary ; 
and I drew my arguments from the divine law, which Christ 
did not abolish, or publish another more grievous than that of 
Moses. I stated my own opinions, and those of others, con- 
cerning the exclusive exception of fornication, which our illus- 
trious Selden has since, in his Hebrew Wife, more copiously 
discussed ; for he in vain makes a vaunt of liberty in the 
senate or in the forum, who languishes under the vilest servi- 
tude, to an inferior at home. On this subject, therefore, I 
published some books which were more particularly necessary 
at that time, when man and wife were often the most inveter- 
ate foes, when the man often staid to take care of his children 
at home, while the mother of the family was seen in the camp 
of the enemy, threatening death and destruction to her hus- 
band. I then discussed the principles of education in a sum- 
mary manner, but sufficiently copious for those who attend 
seriously to the subject ; than which nothing can be more 
necessary to principle the minds of men in virtue, the only 
genuine source of political and individual liberty, the only true 
safeguard of states, the bulwark of their prosperity and renown. 
Lastly, I wrote my Areopagitica, in order to deliver the press 
from the restraints with which it was encumbered; that the 
power of determining what was true and what was false, what 
ought to be published and what to be suppressed, might no 
longer be entrusted to a few illiterate and illiberal individuals, 
who refused their sanction to any work which contained 
views or sentiments at all above the level of the vulgar super- 
stition. On the last species of civil liberty, I said nothing, 
because I saw that sufficient attention was paid to it by the 
magistrates ; nor did I write anything on the prerogative of 
the crown, till the king, voted an enemy by the parHament, 
and vanquished in the field, was summoned before the tri- 
bunal which condemned him to lose his head. But when, at 



26 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

length, some Presbyterian ministers, who had formerly been 
the most bitter enemies to Charles, became jealous of the 
growth of the Independents, and of their ascendency in the 
parliament, most tumultuously clamoured against the sen- 
tence, and did all in their power to prevent the execution, 
though they were not angry, so much on account of the act 
itself, as because it was not the act of their party ; and when 
they dared to affirm, that the doctrine of the protestants, and 
of all the reformed churches, was abhorrent to such an atro- 
cious proceeding against kings ; I thought that it became me 
to oppose such a glaring falsehood ; and accordingly, without 
any immediate or personal application to Charles, I showed, in 
an abstract consideration of the question, what might lawfully 
be done against tyrants ; and in support of what I advanced, 
produced the opinions of the most celebrated divines ; while I 
vehemently inveighed against the egregious ignorance or 
effrontery of men, who professed better things, and from whom 
better things might have been expected. That book did not 
make its appearance till after the death of Charles ; and was 
written rather to reconcile the minds of the people to the 
event, than to discuss the legitimacy of that particular sentence 
which concerned the magistrates, and which was already 
\/ executed. Such were the fruits of my private studies, which 
I gratuitously presented to the church and to the state ; and 
for which I was recompensed by nothing but impunity ; though 
the actions themselves procured me peace of conscience, and 
the approbation of the good ; while I exercised that freedom of 
discussion which I loved. Others, without labour or desert, 
got possession of honours and emoluments ; but no one ever 
knew me either soliciting anything myself or through the 
medium of my friends ; ever beheld me in a supplicating posture 
at the doors of the senate, or the levees of the great. I usually 
kept myself secluded at home, where my own property, part 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2/ 

of which had been withlield during the civil commotions, and 
part of which had been absorbed in the oppressive contributions 
which I had to sustain, afforded me a scanty subsistence. 
When I was released from these engagements, and thought that 
I was about to enjoy an interval of uninterrupted ease, I turned 
my thoughts to a continued history of my country, from the 
earliest times to the present period. I had already finished 
four books, when, after the subversion of the monarchy, and 
the establishment of a republic, I was surprised by an invi- 
tation from the council of state, who desired my services in 
the office for foreign affairs. A book appeared soon after, 
which was ascribed to the king, and contained the most invidi- 
ous charges against the parliament. I was ordered to answer 
it ; and opposed the Iconoclast to his Icon. I did not insult 
over fallen majesty, as is pretended ; I only preferred queen 
Truth to king Charles. The charge of insult, which I saw that 
the malevolent would urge, I was at some pains to remove in 
the beginning of the work ; and as often as possible in other 
places. Salmasius then appeared, to whom they were not, as 
More says, long in looking about for an opponent, but immedi- 
ately appointed me, who happened at the time to be present in 
the council. I have thus, sir, given some account of myself, 
in order to stop your mouth, and to remove any prejudices 
which your falsehoods and misrepresentations might cause even 
good men to entertain against me. I tell thee then, thou 
mass of corruption, to hold thy peace ; for the more you 
malign, the more you will compel me to confute; which will 
only serve to render your iniquity more glaring, and my integ- 
rity more manifest. 



28 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



To Charles Diodati, Milton's schoolfellow at St. PauPs School^ 
and his dearest friend 

At length, dear friend, your letter has reached me, and the 
messenger-paper has brought me your words — brought me 
them from the western shore of Chester's Dee, where with 
prone stream it seeks the Vergivian wave. Much, believe me, 
it delights me that foreign lands have nurtured a heart so 
loving of ours, and a head so faithfully mine ; and that a dis- 
tant part of the country now owes me my sprightly companion, 
whence, however, it means soon, on being summoned, to send 
him back. Me at present that city contains which the Thames 
washes with its ebbing wave ; and me, not unwilling, my 
father's house now possesses. At present it is not my care to 
revisit the reedy Cam ; nor does the love of my forbidden 
rooms yet cause me grief {jiec dudum vetiti me laj'is angit 
anior^. Nor do naked fields please me, where soft shades are 
not to be had. How ill that place suits the votaries of Apollo ! 
Nor am I in the humour still to bear the threats of a harsh 
master {duri minas perferre magistri), and other things not 
to be submitted to by my genius {cceterague ingenio non 
subeunda meo). If this be exile {si sit hoc exiliuni), to have 
gone to my father's house, and, free from cares, to be pursu- 
ing agreeable relaxations, then certainly I retuse neither the 
name nor the lot of a fugitive {non ego vel profugi no men sor- 
temque ?'ecuso), and gladly I enjoy the condition of exile {la^ti/s 
et exilii cotiditione f?'iwr). Oh that that poet, the tearful 
exile in the Pontic territory had never endured worse things ! 
Then had he nothing yielded to Ionian Homer, nor would the 
supreme reputation of having surpassed him be yours, O 
Maro ! For it is in my power to give my leisure up to the 



MIL TON'S A UTOBIO GRAPHY 



29 



placid Muses ; and books, which are my Hfe, have me all to 
themselves. When I am wearied, the pomp of the winding 
theatre takes me hence, and the garrulous stage calls me to 
its noisy applauses — whether it be the wary old gendeman 
that is heard, or the prodigal heir ; whether the wooer, or the 
soldier with his helmet doffed, is on the boards, or the lawyer, 
prosperous with a ten years' lawsuit, is mouthing forth his 
gibberish to the unlearned forum. Often the wily servant is 
abetting the lover-son, and at every turn cheating the very 
nose of the stiff father ; often there the maiden, wondering at 
her new sensations, knows not what love is, and, while she 
knows not, loves. Or, again, furious Tragedy shakes her bloody 
sceptre and rolls her eyes,* with dishevelled locks, and it is a 
pain to look, and yet it is a pleasure to have looked and been 
pained ; for sometimes there is a sweet bitterness in tears. 
Or the unhappy boy leaves his untasted joys, and falls off, a 
pitiful object, from his broken love ; or the fierce avenger of 
crime recrosses the Styx from the shades, perturbing guilty 
souls with his funeral torch. Or the house of Pelops or that 
of noble Ilium is in grief, or the palace of Creon expiates its 
incestuous ancestry. But not always within doors, nor even 
in the city, do we mope ; nor does the season of spring pass 
by unused by us. The grove also planted with thick elms, has 
our company, and the noble shade of a suburban neighbor- 
hood. Very often here, as stars breathing forth mild flames, 
you may see troops of maidens passing by. Ah ! how often 
have I seen the wonders of a worthy form, which might even 
repair the old age of Jove ! Ah ! how often have I seen eyes 
surpassing all gems and whatever lights revolve round either 
pole ; and necks twice whiter than the arms of living Pelops, 
and than the way which flows tinged with pure nectar ; and 
the exquisite grace of the forehead ; and the trembling hair 
which cheating love spreads as his golden nets; and the in- 



30 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

viting cheeks, compared with which hyacinthine purple is 
poor, and the very blush, Adonis, of thy own flower ! . . . But 
for me, while the forbearance of the blind boy allows it, I 
prepare as soon as possible to leave these happy walls, and, 
using the help of divine all-heal, to flee far from the infamous 
dwellings of the sorceress Circe. It is fixed that I do go back 
to the rushy marshes of Cam, and once more approach the 
murmur of the hoarse-murmuring school. Meanwhile accept 
the little gift of your faithful friend, and these few words forced 
into alternate measures. 

To Alexatider Gill, Jr. {Familiar Letters^ No. III.) 

. . . Indeed, every time I recollect your almost constant 
conversations with me (which even in this Athens, the Uni- 
versity itself, I long after and miss), I think immediately, and 
not without grief, what a quantity of benefit my absence from 
you has cheated me of, — me who never left your company 
without a manifest increase and eTTiSoo-i? of literary knowledge, 
just as if I had been to some emporium of learning. Truly, 
amongst us here, as far as I know, there are hardly one or 
two that do not fly off unfeathered to Theology while all but 
rude and uninitiated in either Philology or Philosophy, — con- 
tent also with the slightest possible touch of Theology itself, 
just as much as may suffice for sticking together a Uttle ser- 
mon anyhow, and stitching it over with worn patches obtained 
promiscuously : a fact giving reason for the dread that by 
degrees there may break in among our clergy the priestly 
ignorance of a former age. For myself, finding almost no 
real companions in study here, I should certainly be looking 
straight back to London, were I not meditating a retirement 
during this summer vacation into a deep Hterary leisure and 
a period of hiding, so to speak, in the bowers of the Muses. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 1 

But, as this is your own daily practice, I think it ahiiost a 
crime to interrupt you longer with my din at present. Fare- 
well. 

Cambridge, July 2, 1628. 

To Thomas Young. {^Familiar Letters^ No. IV.) 

. . . Having been invited to your part of the country, as 
soon as spring is a little advanced, I will gladly come, to enjoy 
the delights of the season, and not less of your conversation, 
and will withdraw myself from the din of town for a while to 
your Stoa of the Iceni, as to that most celebrated Porch 
of Zeno or the Tusculan Villa of Cicero, where you, with 
moderate means but regal spirit, like some Serranus or Curius, 
placidly reign in your little farm, and, contemning fortune, 
hold, as it were, a triumph over riches, ambition, pomp, lux- 
ury, and whatever the herd of men admire and are marked 
by 

Cambridge, July 21, 1628. 

To Charles Diodati^ 

making a stay in the country, who, having written to the author 
on the 13th of December, and asked him to excuse his verses, 
if they were less good than usual, on the ground that, in the 
midst of the festivities with which he had been received by 
his friends, he was unable to give a sufficiently prosperous 
attention to the Muses, had the following reply : 

. . . You seem to be enjoying yourself rarely. How well 
you describe the feasts, and the merry December and prepa- 
rations for Christmas, and the cups of French wine round the 
gay hearth ! Why do you complain that poesy is absent from 
these festivities? Festivity and poetry are surely not incom- 



32 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

patible. . . . One sees the triple influence of Bacchus, Apollo, 
and Ceres, in the verses you have sent me. And, then, have 
you not music — the harp lightly touched by nimble hands, 
and the lute giving time to the fair ones as they dance in the 
old tapestried room ? BeHeve me, where the ivory keys leap, 
and the accompanying dance goes round the perfumed hall, 
there will the Song-god be. But let me not go too far. Light 
Elegy is the care of many gods, and calls any one of them by 
turns to her assistance — Bacchus, Erato, Ceres, Venus, and 
little Cupid besides. To poets of this order, therefore, con- 
viviality is allowable ; and they may often indulge in draughts 
of good old wine. But the man who speaks of high inatters — 
the heaven of the full-grown Jove, and pious heroes, and demi- 
god leaders of men, the fnan who now sings the holy counsels 
of the gods above, and 7iow the subterranean 7'ealms guarded 
by the fierce dog — let him live sparely, after the tnanner of the 
Samian 7naster ; let herbs afford him his innocent diet, let clear 
water ift a beechefi cup stand near him, and let liim drink sober 
draughts from a pU7-e fountain ! To this be the7'e added a youth 
chaste a7id free f7'07n guilt, a7id rigid 7no7'als, a7id hands without 
stai7i. Being such, thou shall 7'ise up, glitte7'i7ig i7i sacred rai- 
fnent a7id purified by lust7-al waters, a7i augur about to go into 
the presence of the unoffe7ided gods. So is wise Tiresias said 
to have lived, after he had been deprived of his sight ; and 
Theban Linus ; and Calchas the exile ; and old Orpheus. So 
did the scantily- eating, water-drinking Homer carry his hero 
Ulysses through the monster-teeming hall of Circe, and the 
straits insidious with the voices of the Syrens, and through thy 
courts, too, O infernal King, where he is said to have held the 
troops of shades enthralled by Hbations of black blood. For 
the poet is sacred and the priest of the gods ; and his breast 
and his mouth breathe the indwelling Jove. 

And now, if you will know what I am myself doing (if indeed 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 33 

you think it is of so much consequence to know if I am doing 
anything), here is the fact: we are engaged in singing the 
heavenly birth of the King of Peace, and the happy age prom- 
ised by the holy books, and the infant cries and cradling in 
a manger under a poor roof of that God who rules, with his 
Father, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the sky with the new- 
sprung star in it, and the ethereal choirs of hymning angels, 
and the gods of the heathen suddenly fleeing to their endan- 
gered fanes. This is the gift which we have presented to 
Christ's natal day. On that very morning, at daybreak, it was 
first conceived. The verses, which are composed in the ver- 
nacular, await you in close keeping ; you shall be the judge 
to whom I shall recite them. 

Prolusiones qucedam Oratorice 

Some University Latin Oratorical Exercises, seven in number, 
first pubhshed in 1674, the year of Milton's death, along with 
his Familiar Letters (Epistolge Familiares), 'as a make-weight 
to counterbalance the paucity of the Letters,' have an auto- 
biographic value ; but, with the exception of a small bit, space 
does not allow the admission of them here. ' They throw light,' 
says Masson, 'upon Milton's career at Cambridge. They 
illustrate the extent and nature of his reading, his habits and 
tastes as a student, the relation in which he stood to the Uni- 
versity system of his time, and to the new intellectual tendencies 
which were gradually affecting that system. They also settle 
in the most conclusive manner the fact that Milton passed 
through two stages in his career at the University, — a stage of 
decided unpopularity, in his own College at least, which lasted 
till about 1628, and a final stage of triumph, when his powers 
were recognized.' 

Masson characterizes the seventh oratorical exercise as 

D 



34 MILTOX'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

' one of the finest pieces of Latin prose ever penned by an 
Englishman.' 

The following is a passage, in Masson's close translation, 
from this exercise, which exhibits what continued to be Mil- 
ton's attitude through life : 

* I regard it, my hearers, as known and accepted by all, that 
the great Maker of the Universe, when he had constituted all 
things else as fleeting and corruptible, did mingle up with 
Man, in addition to that of him which is mortal, a certain 
divine breath, as it w^ere part of Himself, immortal, indestructi- 
ble, free from death and extinction; which, after it had so- 
journed purely and holily for some time in the earth as a 
heavenly guest, should flutter aloft to its native heaven, and 
return to its proper home and fatherland : accordingly, that 
fwthing can deservedly be taken into account as among the 
causes of our happiness that does not somehow or other regard 
both that everlasti?ig life atid this civil life below.' 

' When his earlier writings,' says Masson, ' are compared with 
those of his coevals at the University, what strikes one most, 
next to their vastly greater merit altogether, is their more ideal 
tone. As, more than any of them, he was conscious of the 
OS ?nagna soniturutn, the mouth formed for great utterances, 
so all that he does utter has a certain character and form of 
magnitude.' 

Milton's Latin poem, 'Ad Patrem ' (To Father), was occa- 
sioned, as may be seen in the poem, by an expressed dissatis- 
faction on the part of his father with his continued devotion, 
after leaving the University, to his favorite studies and the 
Muses, to the exclusion of all consideration of a profession. 
He had, while yet at the University, fully decided that the 
Church, for which he was destined by his parents, was not for 
him, bowing, as it was, beneath the galling * yoke of prelaty'; 
and to the legal profession he must have been equally, if not 
more, averse. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 35 

Such a tribute of filial affection and gratitude, as is this poem, 
certainly overcame all objections the father may have expressed 
in regard to his course of life at the time. 

We learn from this poem, which was no doubt composed 
soon after Milton's final return to his father's house at Horton, 
in 1632, he being then in his twenty-fourth year, that, along 
with the Latin and the Greek, he had acquired, and by his 
father's advice, a knowledge of the French, Italian, and He- 
brew. We also learn of the father's musical genius, both instru- 
mental and vocal, and of the son's lofty estimate of the power 
of poesy. He ascribes to it a divine nature which evidences 
man's heavenly origin, and bespeaks him illuminated from 
above. 

I give the translation by the poet Cowper, which, while 
being somewhat free, is, I think, altogether the best and most 
poetical that has been made. That by Masson, in hexameters, 
is closer to the original, but has in it a dactylic dance which 
is not so much in harmony with the tone of the original as is 
Cowper's blank-verse translation. 

To Father 

Oh, that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast 
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush 
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood ! 
That, for my venerable father's sake. 
All meaner themes renounced, my muse, on wings 5 

Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain. 
For thee, my father ! howsoe'er it please, 
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught 
That may thy gifts more suitably requite ; 
Though to requite them suitably would ask 10 

Returns much nobler, and surpassing far 



36 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The meagre stores of verbal gratitude ; 

But, such as I possess, I send thee all. 

This page presents thee in their full amount 

With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought ; 15 

Nought, save the riches that from airy dream 

In secret grottos and in laurel bowers 

I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquired. 

Verse is a work divine ; despise not thou 
Verse, therefore, which evinces (nothing more) 20 

Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still 
Some scintillations of Promethean fire, 
Bespeaks him animated from above. 
The gods love verse ; the infernal Powers themselves 
Confess the influence of verse, which stirs 25 

The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains 
Of adamant both Pluto and the Shades. 
In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale 
Tremulous Sibyl make the future known ; 
And he who sacrifices, on the shrine 30 

Hangs verse, both when he smites the threatening bull. 
And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide 
To scrutinize the Fates enveloped there. 
We, too, ourselves, what time we seek again 
Our native skies, and one eternal now 35 

Shall be the only measure of our being, 
Crowned all with gold, and chaunting to the lyre 
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above, 
And make the starry firmament resound ; 
And, even now, the fiery spirit pure 40 

That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself. 
Their mazy dance with melody of verse 
Unutterable, immortal, hearing which 



MIL TON'S A U TO BIO GRAPH Y 



37 



Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppressed, 

Orion, softened, drops his ardent blade, 45 

And Atlas stands unconscious of his load. 

Verse graced of old the feasts of kings ere yet 

Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulph 

Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere 

Lyaeus deluged yet the temperate board. 50 

Then sat the bard a customary guest 

To share the banquet, and, his length of locks 

With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse 

The characters of heroes, and their deeds 

To imitation, sang of Chaos old, sword, belt, and club; 55 

Of nature's birth, of gods that crept in search 

Of acorns fallen, and of the thunder bolt 

Not yet produced from Etna's fiery cave. 

And what avails, at last, tune without voice, 

Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps 60 

The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song 

Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear 

And the oaks followed. Not by chords alone 

Well touched, but by resistless accents more 

To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves 65 

He moved ; these praises to his verse he owes. 

Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to shght 
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain 
And useless, powers by whom inspired thyself 
Art skilful to associate verse with airs 70 

Harmonious, and to give the human voice 
A thousand modulations, heir by right 
Indisputable of Arion's fame. 
Now say, what wonder is it if a son 
Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoined ye 



38 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In close affinity, we sympathize 

In social arts and kindred studies sweet ? 

Such distribution of himself to us 

Was Phoebus' choice ; thou hast thy gift and I 

Mine also ; and between us we receive, 80 

Father and son, the whole inspiring god. 

No ! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume 

Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse, 

My Father ! for thou never bad'st me tread 

The beaten path and broad that leads right on 85 

To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son 

To the insipid clamours of the bar, 

To laws voluminous and ill observed ; 

But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill 

My mind with treasure, ledst me far away 90 

From city din to deep retreats, to banks 

And streams Aonian, and, with free consent, 

Didst place me happy at Apollo's side. 

I speak not now, on more important themes 

Intent, of common benefits and such 95 

As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts. 

My Father ! who, when I had opened once 

The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learned 

The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks, 

Whose lofty music graced the Hps of Jove, 100 

Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers 

That Gallia boasts, those, too, with which the smooth 

Italian his degenerate speech adorns, 

That witnesses his mixture with the Goth ; 

And Palestine's prophetic songs divine. 105 

To sum the vrhole, whate'er the heaven contains, 

The earth beneath it, and the air between. 

The rivers and the restless deep, may all 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 39 

Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish 

Concurring with thy will; Science herself, no 

All cloud removed, incHnes her beauteous head, 

And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart, 

I shrink not and decline her gracious boon. 

Go now and gather dross, ye sordid minds 
That covet it; what could my Father more? 115 

What more could Jove himself, unless he gave 
His own abode, the heaven, in which he reigns? 
More eligible gifts than these were not 
Apollo's to his son, had they been safe. 
As they were insecure, who made the boy 120 

The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule 
The radiant chariot of the day, and bind 
To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath. 
I, therefore, although last and least, my place 
Among the learned in the laurel grove 125 

Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines, 
Henceforth exempt from the unlettered throng 
Profane, nor even to be seen by such. 
Away then, sleepless Care, Complaint away. 
And Envy, with thy 'jealous leer malign ! ' 130 

Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth 
Her venomed tongue at me. Detested foes ! 
Ye all are impotent against my peace. 
For I am privileged, and bear my breast 
Safe, and too high for your viperean wound. 135 

But thou, my Father ! since to render thanks 
Equivalent, and to requite by deeds 
Thy liberahty, exceeds my power. 
Suffice it that I thus record thy gifts. 
And bear them treasured in a grateful mind ! 140 



40 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Ye, too, the favourite pastime of my youth, 

My voluntary numbers, if ye dare 

To hope longevity, and to survive 

Your master's funeral, not soon absorbed 

In the oblivious Lethsean gulph 145 

Shall to futurity perhaps convey 

This theme, and by these praises of my sire 

Improve the Fathers of a distant age ! 

An English letter to a friend (tinknown), who, it appears, had 
been calling him to account for his apparent indifference as 
to his ivork in life 

This letter has an exceptional autobiographic value. The 
sonnet, which is inserted, appears to have been independently 
written some time before, and was originally published in 1645, 
with the heading ^ On his having arrived at the age of twenty- 
three.' 

' Sir, — Besides that in sundry respects I must acknowledge 
me to profit by you whenever we meet, you are often to me, 
and were yesterday especially, as a good watchman to ad- 
monish that the hours of the night pass on (for so I call my 
life, as yet obscure and unserviceable to mankind), and that 
the day with me is at hand, wherein Christ commands all to 
labor, while there is light. Which, because I am persuaded 
you do to no other purpose than out of a true desire that God 
should be honoured in every one, I therefore think myself 
bound, though unasked, to give you an account, as oft as 
occasion is, of this my tardy moving, according to the precept 
of my conscience, which I firmly trust is not without God. 
Yet now 1 will not strain for any set apology, but only refer 
myself to what my mind shall have at any time to declare 
herself at her best ease. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 41 

But if you think, as you said, that too much love of learning 
is in fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my 
years in the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion with 
the moon, as the tale of Latmus goes, yet consider that, if it 
were no more but the mere love of learning, whether it pro- 
ceed from a principle bad, good, or natural, it could not have 
held out thus long against so strong opposition on the other 
side of every kind. For, if it be bad, why should not all the 
fond hopes that forward youth and vanity are fledge with, 
together with gain, pride, and ambition, call me forward 
more powerfully than a poor, regardless, and unprofitable sin 
of curiosity should be able to withhold me ; whereby a man 
cuts himself off from all action, and becomes the most help- 
less, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, 
the most unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most 
aspire to, either to be useful to his friends or to offend his 
enemies? Or, if it be to be thought a natural proneness, 
there is against that a much more potent inclination inbred, 
which about this time of a man's life solicits most — the desire 
of house and family of his own ; to which nothing is esteemed 
more helpful than the early entering into credible employ- 
ment, and nothing hindering than this affected solitariness. 
And, though this were enough, yet there is another act, if not 
of pure, yet of refined nature, no less available to dissuade 
prolonged obscurity — a desire of honour and repute and 
immortal fame, seated in the breast of every true scholar; 
which all make haste to by the readiest ways of publishing 
and divulging conceived merits — as well those that shall, 
as those that never shall, obtain it. Nature, therefore, would 
presently work the more prevalent way, if there were nothing 
but this inferior bent of herself to restrain her. Lastly, the 
love of learning, as it is the pursuit of something good, it 
would sooner follow the more excellent and supreme good 



42 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

known and presented, and so be quickly diverted from the 
empty and fantastic chase of shadows and notions, to the 
sohd good flowing from due and timely obedience to that 
command in the Gospel set out by the terrible feasing of him 
that hid the talent. 

It is more probable, therefore, that not the endless delight 
of speculation, but this very consideration of that great com- 
mandment, does not press forward, as soon as many do, to 
undergo, but keeps off, with a sacred reverence and religious 
advisement how best to undergo, not taking thought of being 
late, so it give advantage to be more fit ; for those that were 
latest lost nothing when the master of the vineyard came to 
give each one his hire. And here I am come to a stream- 
head, copious enough to disburden itself, like Nilus, at seven 
mouths into an ocean. But then I should also run into a 
reciprocal contradiction of ebbing and flowing at once, and 
do that which I excuse myself for not doing — preach and not 
preach. Yet, that you may see that I am something suspicious 
of myself, and do take notice of a certain belatedness in me, 
I am the bolder to send you some of my nightward thoughts 
some while since, because they come in not altogether unfitly, 
made up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I told you of : 

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth. 

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year ! 

My hasting days fly on with full career ; 
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 5 

That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 

And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 
That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. 
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow. 

It shall be still in strictest measure even 10 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 43 

To that same lot, however mean or high, 
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. 
All is, if I have grace to use it so. 

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. 

By this I believe you may well repent of having made 
mention at all of this matter ; for, if I have not all this while 
won you to this, I have certainly wearied you of it. This, 
therefore, alone may be a sufficient reason for me to keep me 
as I am, lest, having thus tired you singly, I should deal worse 
with a whole congregation and spoil all the patience of a 
parish ; for I myself do not only see my own tediousness, but 
now grow offended with it, that has hindered me thus long 
from coming to the last and best period of my letter, and that 
which must now chiefly work my pardon, — that I am 
Your true and unfeigned friend, etc' 

To Alexander Gill, Jr. {Familiar Letters, No. V.) 

If you had presented to me a gift of gold, or of preciously 
embossed vases, or whatever of that sort mortals admire, it 
were certainly to my shame not to have some time or other 
made you a remuneration in return, as far as my faculties might 
serve. Your gift of the day before yesterday, however, having 
been such a sprightly and elegant set of Hendecasyllabics, you 
have, just in proportion to the superiority of that gift to any- 
thing in the form of gold, made us the more anxious to find 
some dainty means by which to repay the kindness of so pleas- 
ant a favour. We had, indeed, at hand some things of our own 
of this same kind, but such as I could nowise deem fit to be 
sent in contest of equahty of gift with yours. I send, therefore, 
what is not exactly mine, but belongs also to the truly divine 
poet, this ode of whom, only last week, with no deliberate 



44 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

intention certainly, but from I know not what sudden impulse 
before daybreak, I adapted, almost in bed, to the rule of Greek 
heroic verse : with the effect, it seems, that, relying on this 
coadjutor, who surpasses you no less in his subject than you 
surpass me in art, I should have something that might have a 
resemblance of approach to a balancing of accounts. Should 
anything meet you in it not coming up to your usual opinion 
of our productions, understand that, since I left your school, 
this is the first and only thing I have composed in Greek, — 
employing myself, as you know, more willingly in Latin and 
English matters ; inasmuch as whoever spends study and pains 
in this age on Greek composition runs a risk of singing mostly 
to the deaf. . . . 

From our suburban residence (^E nosiro suburband)^ December 4, 1634. 



To Charles Diodati, {Familiar Letters^ No. VI.) 

Now at length I see plainly that what you are driving at is 
to vanquish me sometimes in the art of obstinate silence ; and, 
if it is so, bravo ! have that little glory over us, for behold ! we 
write first. All the same, if ever the question should come into 
contention why neither has written to the other for so long, do 
not think but that I shall stand by many degrees the more 
excused of the two, — manifestly so indeed, as being one by 
nature slow and lazy to write, as you well know ; while you, on 
the other hand, whether by nature or by habit, are wont with- 
out difficulty to be drawn into epistolary correspondence of 
this sort. It makes also for my favour that I know your 
method of studying to be so arranged that you frequently take 
breath in the middle, visit your friends, write much, sometimes 
make a journey, whereas my genius is such that no delay, no 
rest, no care or thought almost of anything, holds me aside 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 45 

until I reach the end I am making for, and round off, as it 
were, some great period of my studies. . . . 

London, September 2, 1637. 



To Charles Diodati. (^Familiar Letters ^ No. VII.) 

. . . What besides God has resolved concerning me I know 
not, but this at least : He has instilled into me, if into any one, 
a vehement love of the beautiful. Not with so much labour, 
as the fables have it, is Ceres said to have sought her daughter 
Proserpina as it is my habit day and night to seek for this idea 
of the beautiful, as for a certain image of supreme beauty, 
through all the forms and faces of things {for many are the 
shapes of things divine^, and to follow it as it leads me on by 
some sure traces which I seem to recognize. Hence it is that, 
when any one scorns what the vulgar opine in their depraved 
estimation of things, and dares to feel and speak and be that 
which the highest wisdom throughout all ages has taught to be 
best, to that man I attach myself forthwith by a kind of real 
necessity, wherever I find him. If, whether by nature or by 
my fate, I am so circumstanced that by no effort or labour of 
mine can I myself rise to such an honour and elevation, yet 
that I should always worship and look up to those who have 
attained that glory, or happily aspire to it, neither gods nor 
men, I reckon, have bidden nay. 

But now I know you wish to have your curiosity satisfied. 
You make many anxious inquiries, even as to what I am at 
present thinking of. Hearken, Theodotus, but let it be in 
your private ear, lest I blush ; and allow me for a little to use 
big language with you. You ask what I am thinking of? So 
may the good Deity help me, of immortality ! And what am 
I doing? Growing my wings and meditating flight; but as 



46 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

yet our Pegasus raises himself on very tender pinions. Let 
us be lowly wise ! 



I have by continuous reading brought down the affairs of the 
Greeks as far as the time when they ceased to be Greeks. I 
have been long engaged in the obscure business of the state 
of Italians under the Longobards, the Franks, and the Ger- 
mans, down to the time when liberty was granted them by 
Rodolph, King of Germany : from that period it will be better 
to read separately what each City did by its own wars. . . . 

London, September 23, 1637. 

To Benedetto Boiunattei of Flo7-e7ice. {^Familiar Letters, 
No. VIII.) 

... I, certainly, who have not wet merely the tips of my 
lips with both those tongues, but have, as much as any, to the 
full allowance of my years, drained their deeper draughts, can 
yet sometimes willingly and eagerly go for a feast to that Dante 
of yours, and to Petrarch, and a good few more ; nor has Attic 
Athens herself, with her pellucid Ilissus, nor that old Rome 
with her bank of the Tiber, been able so to hold me but that 
I love often to visit your Arno and these hills of Faesule. See 
now, I entreat, whether it has not been with enough of provi- 
dential cause that / have been given to you for these few days, 
as your latest guest from the ocean, who am so great a lover 
of your nation that, as I think, there is no other more so. . . . 

Florence, September 10, 1638. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 47 

Mansus 

Milton's Latin poem addressed to Manso, Marquis of Villa, 
in grateful acknowledgment of the distinguished attention 
which had been shown him by the aged Marquis, during his 
stay in Naples, contains the first intimation in his writings of 
his contemplating an epic poem to be based on the legendary 
or mythical history of Britain, with King Arthur for its hero. 

The following is Masson's quite literal prose translation of 
vv. 70-100 : 

. . . ' Oh that my lot might yield me such a friend, one who 
should know as well how to decorate Apollo's children, if per- 
chance I shall ever call back into verse our native kings, and 
Arthur stirring wars even under the earth that hides him, 01 
speak of the great-souled heroes, the knights of the uncon- 
quered Table, bound in confederate brotherhood, and (Oh may 
the spirit be present to me !) break the Saxon phalanxes 
under the British Mars. Then, when, having measured out 
the period of a not silent Ufe, and full of years, I shall leave 
the dust its due, he would stand by my bed with wet eyes ; it 
would be enough if I said to him standing by " Let me be thy 
charge ; " he would see that my hmbs, slacked in livid death, 
were sofdy laid in the narrow coffin ; perchance he would bring 
out from the marble our features, wreathing the hair either with 
the leaf of Paphian myrtle or with that of Parnassian laurel ; 
but I should repose in secure peace. Then, too, if faith is 
aught, if there are assured rewards of the good, I myself, with- 
drawn into the ether of the heaven-housed gods, whither labour 
and the pure mind and the fire of virtue carry us, shall behold 
these things from some part of the unseen world, as far as the 
fates allow, and, smiling serene, with soul entire, shall feel my 
face suffused with the purple light, and applaud myself the 
while in the joy of ethereal Olympus.' 



48 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Froiti the ' Areopagi/ica : a speech for the liberty of unlicensed 
printing. To the Parliament of England ' 

And lest some should persuade ye, lords and commons, that 
these arguments of learned men's discouragement at this your 
order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what 
I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of 
inquisition tyrannizes ; when I have sat among their learned 
men, (for that honour I had,) and been counted happy to be 
born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed 
England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the ser- 
vile condition into which learning amongst them was brought ; 
that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits ; 
that nothing had been there written now these many years but 
flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the 
famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for 
thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Do- 
minican licensers thought. And though I knew that England 
then was groaning loudest under the prelatical yoke, neverthe- 
less I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that other nations 
were so persuaded of her liberty. 

Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies were then 
breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliver- 
ance, as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that 
this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as 
little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among 
learned men of other parts uttered against the Inquisition, the 
same I should hear, by as learned men at home, uttered in 
time of parliament against an order of Hcensing ; and that so 
generally, that when I had disclosed myself a companion of 
their discontent, I might say, if without envy, that he whom an 
honest quaestorship had endeared to the Sicilians, was not more 
by them importuned against Verres, than the favourable opinion 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 49 

which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and 
respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and persuasions, that 
I would not despair to lay together that which just reason 
should bring into my mind, towards the removal of an unde- 
served thraldom upon learning. 



To Lucas Holstejtius in the Vatican at Rome. {Familiar 
Letters, No. IX.) 

Although I both can and often do remember many courteous 
and most friendly acts done me by many in this my passage 
through Italy, yet, for so brief an acquaintance, I do not know 
whether I can justly say that from any one I have had greater 
proofs of goodwill than those which have come to me from you. 
For, when I went up to the Vatican for the purpose of meeting 
you, though a total stranger to you, — unless perchance anything 
had been previously said about me to you by Alexander Cheru- 
bini, — you received me with the utmost courtesy. Admitted 
at once with poHteness into the Museum, I was allowed to be- 
hold the superb collection of books, and also very many manu- 
script Greek authors set forth with your explanations, — some 
of whom, not yet seen in our age, seemed now, in their array, 
like Virgil's 

penitus convalle virenti 
Inclus3e animae superumque ad lumen iturae, (vi. 679) 

to demand the active hands of the printer, and a delivery into 
the world, while others, already edited by your care, are eagerly 
received everywhere by scholars : — dismissed, too, richer than 
I came, with two copies of one of these last presented to me 
by yourself. Then, I could not but beheve that it was in con- 
sequence of the mention you made of me to the most excellent 
Cardinal Francesco Barberini that, when he, a few days after, 



50 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

gave that public musical entertainment with truly Roman mag- 
nificence (aKpoajjLa illud musicum magnificentia vere Romana 
publice exhiberet), he himself, waiting at the doors, and seek- 
ing me out in so great a crowd, almost seizing me by the hand, 
indeed, admitted me within in a truly most honourable man- 
ner. Further, when, on this account, I went to pay my re- 
spects to him next day, you again were the person that both 
made access for me and obtained me an opportunity of leisurely 
conversation with him — an opportunity such as, with so great 
a man, — than whom, on the topmost summit of dignity, noth- 
ing more kind, nothing more courteous, — was truly, place and 
time considered, too ample rather than too sparing. . . . 
Florence, March 30, 1639. 

Epitaphium Damonis 

The ' Epitaphium Damonis ' is a pastoral elegy, occasioned by 
the death of Charles Diodati, which occurred in the summer 
or autumn of 1638, while Milton was on his continental tour, 
As an expression of the poet's grief for the loss of his boyhood's; 
and early manhood's dearest, most intimate, and sympathetic 
friend, it has a general autobiographic character ; but it con- 
tains one passage (vv. 161-178), having a special interest ol 
the kind, in which he again alludes to his contemplated epic 
poem, to be based on the legendary history of Britain. 

The following is Masson's translation of the Argument and of 
vv. 161-178 : 

'Thyrsis and Damon, shepherds of the same neighbourhood, 
following the same pursuits, were friends from their boyhood, 
in the highest degree of mutual attachment. Thyrsis, having 
set out to travel for mental improvement, received news when 
abroad of Damon's death. Afterwards at length returning, and 
finding the matter to be so, he deplores himself and his soli- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 I 

tary condition in the following poem. Under the guise of 
Damon, however, is here understood Charles Diodati, tracing 
his descent on the father's side from the Tuscan city of Lucca, 
but otherwise English — a youth remarkable, while he lived, 
for his genius, his learning, and other most shining virtues.' 

* Go unpastured, my lambs : your master now heeds not your 

bleating. 
/ have a theme of the Trojans cruising our southern headlands 
Shaping to song, and the realm of Imogen, daughter of 

Pandras, 
Brennus and Arvirach, dukes, and Bren's bold brother, 

Belinus ; 
Then the Armorican settlers under the laws of the Britons, 
Ay, and the womb of Igraine fatally pregnant with Arthur, 
Uther's son, whom he got disguised in Gorlois' hkeness. 
All by Merlin's craft. Oh then, if life shall be spared me. 
Thou shalt be hung, my pipe, far off on some brown dying pine 

tree, 
Much forgotten of me ; or else your Latian music 
Changed for the British war-screech ! What then ? For one 

to do all things. 
One to hope all things, fits not ! Prize sufficiently ample 
Mine, and distinction great (unheard of ever thereafter 
Though I should be, and inglorious, all through the world of the 

stranger), 
If but yellow-haired Ouse shall read me, the drinker of Alan, 
H umber, which whirls as it flows, and Trent's whole valley of 

orchards, 
Thames, my own Thames, above all, and Tamar's western 

waters. 
Tawny with ores, and where the white waves swinge the far 

Orkneys.' 



52 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



Fro7n ^ Of Reformation i?i England^ 

Oh, sir, I do now feel myself inwrapped on the sudden into 
those mazes and labyrinths of dreadful and hideous thoughts, 
that which way to get out, or which way to end, I know not, 
unless I turn mine eyes, and with your help lift up my hands 
to that eternal and propitious Throne, where nothing is readier 
than grace and refuge to the distresses of mortal suppliants : 
and it were a shame to leave these serious thoughts less 
piously than the heathen were wont to conclude their graver 
discourses. 

Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory unapproach- 
able, Parent of angels and men ! next, thee I implore, om- 
nipotent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose nature 
thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting Love ! and thou, 
the third subsistence of divine infinitude, illumining Spirit, 
the joy and solace of created things ! one Tripersonal god- 
head ! look upon this thy poor and almost spent and expiring 
church, leave her not thus a prey to these importunate wolves, 
that wait and think long till they devour thy tender flock ; 
these wild boars that have broke into thy vineyard, and left 
the print of their polluting hoofs on the souls of thy servants. 
Oh ! let them not bring about their damned designs, that stand 
now at the entrance of the bottomless pit, expecting the watch- 
word to open and let out those dreadful locusts and scorpions, 
to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where 
we shall never more see the sun of thy truth again, never hope 
for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird of morning 
sing. Be moved with pity at the afflicted state of this our 
shaken monarchy, that now lies labouring under her throes, 
and struggling against the grudges of more dreaded calamities. 

O thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five bloody in- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 53 

undations, and the succeeding sword of intestine war, soaking 
the land in her own gore, didst pity the sad and ceaseless 
revolution of our swift and thick-coming sorrows ; when we 
were quite breathless, of thy free grace didst motion peace, 
and terms of covenant with us ; and having first well nigh 
freed us from antichristian thraldom, didst build up this 
Britannic empire to a glorious and enviable height, with all 
her daughter-islands about her ; stay us in this felicity, let 
not the obstinacy of our half-obedience and will-worship 
bring forth that viper of sedition, that for these fourscore 
years hath been breeding to eat through the entrails of our 
peace ; but let her cast her abortive spawn without the danger 
of this travailing and throbbing kingdom : that we may still 
remember in our solemn thanksgivings, how for us, the north- 
ern ocean even to the frozen Thule was scattered with the 
proud shipwrecks of the Spanish armada, and the very maw of 
hell ransacked, and made to give up her concealed destruction, 
ere she could vent it in that horrible and damned blast. 

Oh how much more glorious will those former deliverances 
appear, when we shall know them not only to have saved us 
from greatest miseries past, but to have reserved us for greatest 
happiness to come ! Hitherto thou hast but freed us, and that 
not fully, from the unjust and tyrannous claim of thy foes ; now 
unite us entirely, and appropriate us to thyself, tie us everlast- 
ingly in willing homage to the prerogative of thy eternal throne. 

And now we know, O thou our most certain hope and de- 
fence, that thine enemies have been consulting all the sorceries 
of the great whore, and have joined their plots with that sad 
intelligencing tyrant that mischiefs the world with his mines of 
Ophir, and lies thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that have 
larded our seas : but let them all take counsel together, and let 
it come to nought ; let them decree, and do thou cancel it ; let 
them gather thjemselves, and be scattered ; let them embattle 



54 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

themselves, and be broken ; let them embattle, and be broken, 
for thou art with us. 

Theii, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some ofie 
may perhaps be heard offering at high st?'ains in new and lofty 
measures, to sitig and celebrate thy divine fnercies and marvellous 
judgments in this land throughout all ages ; whereby this great 
and warlike nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and 
continual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting far 
from her the rags of her old vices, may press on hard to that 
high and happy emulation to be found the soberest, wisest, and 
most Christian people at that day, when thou, the eternal and 
shortly-expected King, shalt open the clouds to judge the sev- 
eral kingdoms of the world, and distributing national honours 
and rewards to religious and just commonwealths, shalt put an 
end to all earthly tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal and mild 
monarchy through heaven and earth ; where they undoubtedly, 
that by their labours, counsels, and prayers, have been earnest 
for the common good of religion and their country, shall re- 
ceive above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal addi- 
tion of principalities, legions, and thrones into their glorious 
titles, and in supereminence of beatific vision, progressing the 
dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp insepara- 
ble hands with joy and bUss, in overmeasure for ever. 

From ^Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence,' etc. 

O thou the ever-begotten Light and perfect Image of the 
Father ! thou hast opened our difficult and sad times, and given 
us an unexpected breathing after our long oppressions : thou 
hast done justice upon those that tyrannized over us, while 
some men wavered and admired a vain shadow of wisdom in a 
tongue nothing slow to utter guile, though thou hast taught us 
to admire only that which is good, and to count that only 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



55 



praiseworthy, which is grounded upon thy divine precepts. 
Thou hast discovered the plots, and frustrated the hopes, of 
all the wicked in the land, and put to shame the persecutors 
of thy church : thou hast made our false prophets to be found 
a lie in the sight of all the people, and chased them with sud- 
den confusion and amazement before the redoubled brightness 
of thy descending cloud, that now covers thy tabernacle. Who 
is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walk through 
the midst of thy sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks, 
which have long suffered a dimness amongst us through the 
violence of those that had seized them, and were more taken 
with the mention of their gold than of their starry light ; teach- 
ing the doctrine of Balaam, to cast a stumbling-block before 
thy servants, commanding them to eat things sacrificed to idols, 
and forcing them to fornication? Come, therefore, O thou 
that hast the seven stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen 
priests according to their orders and courses of old, to minister 
before thee, and duly to press and pour out the consecrated 
oil into thy holy and ever-burning lamps. Thou has sent out 
the spirit of prayer upon thy servants over all the land to this 
effect, and stirred up their vows as the sound of many waters 
about thy throne. Every one can say, that now certainly thou 
hast visited this land, and hast not forgotten the utmost corners 
of the earth, in a time when men had thought that thou wast 
gone up from us to the furthest end of the heavens, and hadst 
left to do marvellously among the sons of these last ages. Oh 
perfect and accomplish thy glorious acts ! for men may leave 
their works unfinished, but thou art a God, thy nature is per- 
fection : shouldst thou bring us thus far onward from Egypt to 
destroy us in this wilderness, though we deserve, yet thy great 
name would suffer in the rejoicing of thine enemies, and the 
deluded hope of all thy servants. When thou hast settled 
peace in the church, and righteous judgment in the kingdom, 



$6 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

then shall all thy saints address their voices of joy and triumph 
to thee, standing on the shore of that Red Sea into which our 
enemies had almost driven us. And he that now for haste 
snatches up a plain ungarnished present as a thank-offering to 
thee, which could not be deferred in regard, of thy so many late 
deliverances wrought for us 07ie upon another, may then perhaps 
take up a harp, a?id siftg thee an elaborate song to generations. 
In that day it shall no more be said as in scorn, this or that was 
never held so till this present age, when men have better learnt 
that the times and seasons pass along under thy feet to go and 
come at thy bidding : and as thou didst dignify our fathers' 
days with many revelations above all the foregoing ages, since 
thou tookest the flesh ; so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though 
unworthy) as large a portion of thy Spirit as thou pleasest : for 
who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the power of 
thy grace is not passed away with the primitive times, as fond 
and faithless men imagine, but thy kingdom is now at hand, 
and thou standing at the door. Come forth out of thy royal 
chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth ! put on the 
visible robes of thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited 
sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee ; for 
now the voice of thy bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh to 
be renewed. 



From ^ The Reason of Church Government urged against 
Prelaty ' 

For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and 
solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest 
liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it 
available in so dear a concernment as the church's good. For 
if I be, either by disposition or what other cause, too inquisi- 
tive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who can 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 57 

help it? But this I foresee, that should the church be brought 
under heavy oppression, and God have given me ability the 
while to reason against that man that should be the author of 
so foul a deed ; or should she, by blessing from above on the 
industry and courage of faithful men, change this her distracted 
estate into better days, without the least furtherance or con- 
tribution of those few talents, which God at that present had 
lent me ; I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all 
my life after, of discourage and reproach. Timorous and un- 
grateful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her 
insulting enemies, and thou bewailest. What matters it for 
thee, or thy bewailing? When time was, thou couldst not find 
a syllable of all that thou hast read, or studied, to utter in her 
behalf. Yet ease and leisure was given thee for thy retired 
thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. Thou hast the dili- 
gence, the parts, the language of a man, if a vain subject were 
to be adorned or beautified ; but when the cause of God and 
his church was to be pleaded, for which purpose that tongue 
was given thee which thou hast, God hstened if he could hear 
thy voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a 
beast ; from henceforward be that which thine own brutish 
silence hath made thee. Or else I should have heard on the 
other ear : Slothful, and ever to be set light by, the church hath 
now overcome her late distresses after the unwearied labours 
of many her true servants that stood up in her defence ; thou 
also wouldst take upon thee to share amongst them of their 
joy : but wherefore thou? Where canst thou shew any word or 
deed of thine which might have hastened her peace? What- 
ever thou dost now talk, or write, or look, is the alms of other 
men's active prudence and zeal. Dare not now to say or do 
anything better than thy former sloth and infancy ; or if thou 
darest, thou dost impudently to make a thrifty purchase of 
boldness to thyself, out of the painful merits of other men ; 



58 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

what before was thy sin is now thy duty, to be abject and 
worthless. These, and such-hke lessons as these, I know 
would have been my matins duly, and my even-song. But now 
by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I have gained 
with good men and saints, to claim my right of lamenting the 
tribulations of the church, if she should suffer, when others, 
that have ventured nothing for her sake, have not the honour 
to be admitted mourners. But if she lift up her drooping head 
and prosper, among those that have something more than 
wished her welfare, I have my charter and freehold of rejoic- 
ing to me and my heirs. Concerning therefore this wayward 
subject against prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful 
and disquietous to a number of men, as by what hath been said 
I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither 
envy nor gall hath entered me upon this controversy, but the 
enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear lest the 
omitting of this duty should be against me, when I would store 
up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours : so, lest it 
should be still imputed to me, as I have found it hath been, 
that some self-pleasing humour of vain-glory hath incited me 
to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years 
are upon my head ; from this needless surmisal I shall hope to 
dissuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I can but say suc- 
cessfully that which in this exigent behoves me ; although I 
would be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and learned 
reader, to whom principally for a while I shall beg leave I may 
address myself. To him it will be no new thing, though I tell 
him that if I hunted after praise, by the ostentation of wit and 
learning, I should not write thus out of mine own season when 
I have neither yet completed to my mind the full circle of my 
private studies, although I complain not of any insufficiency to 
the matter in hand ; or were I ready to my wishes, it were a 
folly to commit anything elaborately composed to the careless 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 59 

and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times. Next, if 
I were wise only to my own ends, I would certainly take 
such a subject as of itself might catch applause, whereas 
this hath all the disadvantages on the contrary, and such a 
subject as the pubhshing whereof might be delayed at 
pleasure, and time enough to pencil it over with all the curious 
touches of art, even to the perfection of a fauldess picture ; 
whenas in this argument the not deferring is of great moment 
to the good speeding, that if solidity have leisure to do her 
office, art cannot have much. Lastly, I should not choose this 
manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, 
led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the 
use, as I may account, but of my left hand. And though I 
shall be foolish in saying more to this purpose, yet, since it will 
be such a folly, as wisest men go about to commit, having only 
confessed and so committed, I may trust with more reason, 
because with more folly, to have courteous pardon. For 
although a poet, soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with 
his garland and singing robes about him, might, without apol- 
ogy, speak more of himself than I mean to do ; yet for me sit- 
ting here below in the cool element of prose, a mortal thing 
among many readers of no empyreal conceit, to venture and 
divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition to the gentler 
sort, it may not be envy to me. I must say, therefore, that 
after I had for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and 
care of my father, (whom God recompense !) been exercised 
to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by 
sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at the schools, 
it was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that 
had the overlooking, or betaken to of mine own choice in Eng- 
lish, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by this 
latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to hve. 
But much latelier in the private academies of Italy, whither I 



6o MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was favoured to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I 
had in memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout, (for 
the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit 
and reading there,) met with acceptance above what was 
looked for; and other things, which I had shifted in scarcity of 
books and conveniences to patch up amongst them, were re- 
ceived with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward 
to bestow on men of this side the Alps ; I began thus far to 
assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home, 
and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily 
upon me, that by labour and intense study, (which I take to be 
my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity of 
nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, 
as they should not willingly let it die. These thoughts at once 
possessed me, and these other ; that if I were certain to write 
as men buy leases, for three lives and downward, there ought 
no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour 
and instruction of my country. For which cause, and not only 
for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank 
among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which 
Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the 
industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native 
tongue ; not to make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a 
toilsome vanity,) but to be an interpreter and relater of the 
best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout 
this island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and 
choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those 
Hebrews of old did for their country, I, in my proportion, with 
this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine ; 
not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could 
attain to that, but content with these British islands as my 
world ; whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the Athenians, 
as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 6 1 

their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achieve- 
ments made small by the unskilful handUng of monks and 
mechanics. 

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse 
to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the 
spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to her- 
self, though of highest hope and hardest attempting ; whether 
that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those 
other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book of 
Job a brief model : or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are 
strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed, which in them 
that know art, and use judgment, is no transgression, but an 
enriching of art : and lastly, what king or knight, before the 
conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay the pattern of a 
Christian hero. And as Tasso gave to a prince of Italy his 
choice whether he would command him to write of Godfrey's 
expedition against the Infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, 
or Charlemagne against the Lombards; if to the instinct of 
nature and the emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and 
that there be nothing adverse in our climate, or the fate of this 
age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence 
and inclination, to present the hke offer in our own ancient 
stories ; or whether those dramatic constitutions, wherein 
Sophocles and Euripides reign, shall be found more doctrinal 
and exemplary to a nation. The Scripture also affords us a 
divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of 
two persons, and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges. 
And the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high 
and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn 
scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harp- 
ing symphonies : and this my opinion the grave authority of 
Parens, commenting that book, is sufficient to confirm. Or if 
occasion shall lead, to imitate those magnific odes and hymns, 



62 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are in most things worthy, 
some others in their frame judicious, in their matter most an 
end faulty. But those frequent songs throughout the law and 
prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, 
but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made 
appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. 
These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift 
of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) 
in every nation ; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, 
to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue 
and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind, and 
set the affections in right tune ; to celebrate in glorious and 
lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, 
and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with 
high providence in his church ; to sing victorious agonies of 
martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious 
nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies o/ 
Christ ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states 
from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in 
religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatso- 
ever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which 
is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and re- 
fluxes of man's thoughts from within ; all these things with a 
solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe. 
Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through 
all the instances of example, with such delight to those espe- 
cially of soft and dehcious temper, who will not so much as 
look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed ; 
that whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now 
rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, 
they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though 
they were rugged and difficult indeed. And what a benefit 
this would be to our youth and gentry, may be soon guessed 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 63 

by what we know of the corruption and bane which they suck 
in daily from the writings and interludes of libidinous and igno- 
rant poetasters, who having scarce ever heard of that which is 
the main consistence of a true poem, the choice of such persons 
as they ought to introduce, and what is moral and decent to 
each one ; do for the most part lay up vicious principles in 
sweet pills to be swallowed down, and make the taste of virtu- 
ous documents harsh and sour. But because the spirit of man 
cannot demean itself lively in this body, without some recreat- 
ing intermission of labour and serious things, it were happy for 
the commonwealth, if our magistrates, as in those famous gov- 
ernments of old, would take into their care, not only the decid- 
ing of our contentious law-cases and brawls, but the managing 
of our public sports and festival pastimes ; that they might be, 
not such as were authorized a while since, the provocations of 
drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure and harden our 
bodies by martial exercises to all warlike skill and perform- 
ance ; and may civilize, adorn, and make discreet our minds 
by the learned and affable meeting of frequent academies, and 
the procurement of wise and artful recitations, sweetened with 
eloquent and graceful enticements to the love and practice of 
justice, temperance, and fortitude, instructing and bettering 
the nation at all opportunities, that the call of wisdom and 
virtue may be heard everywhere, as Solomon saith : ' She 
crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, in the top 
of high places, in the chief concourse, and in the openings of 
the gates.' Whether this may not be, not only in pulpits, but 
after another persuasive method, at set and solemn paneguries, 
in theatres, porches, or what other place or way may win most 
upon the people to receive at once both recreation and instruc- 
tion, let them in authority consult. The thing which I had 
to say and those intentions which have lived within me ever 
since I could conceive myself anything worth to my country, 



64 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I return to crave excuse that urgent reason hath plucked from 
me, by an abortive and foredated discovery. And the ac- 
complishment of them lies not but in a power above man's to 
promise ; but that none hath by more studious ways endeav- 
oured, and with more unwearied spirit that none shall, that 
I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure 
will extend ; and that the land had once enfranchised herself 
from this impertinent yoke of prelaty, under whose inquisito- 
rious and tyrannical duncery, no free and splendid wit can 
flourish. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any 
knowing reader, that for some years yet I may go on 
trust with him toward the payment of what I am now in- 
debted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of 
youth, or the vapours of wine ; like that which flows at waste 
from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of 
a rhyming parasite ; nor to be obtained by the invocation of 
dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer 
to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and 
knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed 
fire of his altar, to touch and purify the Hps of whom he 
pleases : to this must be added industrious and select reading, 
steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts 
and affairs ; till which in some measure be compassed, at 
mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expecta- 
tion from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity 
upon the best pledges that I can give them. Although it noth- 
ing content me to have disclosed thus much beforehand, 
but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small 
willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes 
than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed 
with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled 
sea of noises and hoarse disputes, put from beholding the 
bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delight- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 65 

fill studies, to come into the dim reflection of hollow antiqui- 
ties sold by the seeming bulk, and there be fain to club 
quotations with men whose learning and belief lies in marginal 
stuffings, who, when they have, like good sumpters, laid ye 
down their horse-loads of citations and fathers at your door, 
with a rhapsody of who and who were bishops here or there, 
ye may take off their packsaddles, their day's work is done, 
and episcopacy, as they think, stoutly vindicated. Let any 
gentle apprehension, that can distinguish learned pains from 
unlearned drudgery imagine what pleasure or profoundness 
can be in this, or what honour to deal against such adversaries. 
But were it the meanest under-service, if God by his secre- 
tary conscience enjoin it, it were sad for me if I should draw 
back ; for me especially, now when all men offer their aid to 
help, ease, and lighten the difficult labours of the church, to 
whose service, by the intentions of my parents and friends, 1 
was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions : till 
coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyr- 
anny had invaded the church, that he who would take orders 
must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless 
he took with a conscience that would retch, he must either 
straight perjure, or split his faith; I thought it better to pre- 
fer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking, 
bought and begun with servitude and forswearing. Howso- 
ever, thus church-outed by the prelates, hence may appear the 
right I have to meddle in these matters, as before the necessity 
and constraint appeared. 

From ^Apology for Smectymmius ' 

If, readers, to that same great difficulty of well-doing what 
we certainly know, were not added in most men as great a 
carelessness of knowing what they and others ought to do, we 

F 



66 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had been long ere this, no doubt but all of us, much further 
on our way to some degree of peace and happiness in this 
kingdom. But since our sinful neglect of practising that which 
we know to be undoubtedly true and good, hath brought forth 
among us, through God's just anger, so great a difficulty now 
to know that which otherwise might be soon learnt, and hath 
divided us by a controversy of great importance indeed, but 
of no hard solution, which is the more our punishment ; I re- 
solved (of what small moment soever I might be thought) to 
stand on that side where I saw both the plain authority of 
scripture leading, and the reason of justice and equity per- 
suading ; with this opinion, which esteems it more unlike a 
Christian to be a cold neuter in the cause of the church, than 
the law of Solon made it punishable after a sedition in the 
state. 

And because I observe that fear and dull disposition, luke- 
warmness and sloth, are not seldomer wont to cloak themselves 
under the affected name of moderation, than true and lively 
zeal is customably disparaged with the term of indiscretion, 
bitterness, and choler ; I could not to my thinking honour a 
good cause more from the heart, than by defending it earnestly, 
as oft as I could judge it to behove me, notwithstanding any 
false name that could be invented to wrong or undervalue an 
honest meaning. Wherein although I have not doubted to 
single forth more than once such of them as were thought the 
chief and most nominated opposers on the other side, whom 
no man else undertook ; if I have done well either to be con- 
fident of the truth, whose force is best seen against the ablest 
resistance, or to be jealous and tender of the hurt that might 
be done among the weaker by the entrapping authority of 
great names titled to false opinions ; or that it be lawful to 
attribute somewhat to gifts of God's imparting, which I boast 
not, but thankfully acknowledge, and fear also lest at my certain 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ,6y 

account they be reckoned to me rather many than few ; or if 
lastly it be but justice not to defraud of due esteem the weari- 
some labours and studious watchings, wherein I have spent 
and. tired out almost a whole youth, I shall not distrust to be 
acquitted of presumption : knowing, that if heretofore all 
ages have received with favour and good acceptance the 
early industry of him that hath been hopeful, it were but 
hard measure now if the freedom of any timely spirit should 
be oppressed merely by the big and blunted fame of his elder 
adversary ; and that his sufficiency must be now sentenced, not 
by pondering the reason he shews, but by calculating the years 
he brings. 

However, as my purpose is not, nor hath been formerly, to 
look on my adversary abroad, through the deceiving glass of 
other men's great opinion of him, but at home, where I may 
find him in the proper light of his own worth, so now against 
the rancour of an evil tongue, from which I never thought so 
absurdly, as that I of all men should be exempt, I must be 
forced to proceed from the unfeigned and diligent inquiry of 
my own conscience at home, (for better way I know not, read- 
ers,) to give a more true account of myself abroad than this 
modest confuter, as he calls himself, hath given of me. Albeit, 
that in doing this I shall be sensible of two things which to me 
will be nothing pleasant ; the one is, that not unlikely I shall 
be thought too much a party in mine own cause, and therein to 
see least : the other, that I shall be put unwillingly to molest 
the public view with the vindication of a private name ; as if 
it were worth the while that the people should care whether 
such a one were thus, or thus. Yet those I entreat who have 
found the leisure to read that name, however of small repute, 
unworthily defamed, would be so good and so patient as to hear 
the same person not unneedfully defended. 

I will not deny but that the best apology against false ac- 



6S MIL TON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

cusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against 
dishonest words. And that I could at this time most easily and 
securely, with the least loss of reputation, use no other defence, 
I need not despair to win belief; whether I consider both the 
foolish contriving and ridiculous aiming of these his slanderous 
bolts, shot so wide of any suspicion to be fastened on me, that 
I have oft with inward contentment perceived my friends 
congratulating themselves in my innocence, and my enemies 
ashamed of their partner's folly : or whether I look at these 
present times, wherein most men, now scarce permitted the 
liberty to think over their own concernments, have removed 
the seat of their thoughts more outward to the expectation of 
public events : or whether the examples of men, either noble 
or religious, who have sat down lately with a meek silence 
and sufferance under many libellous endorsements, may be 
a rule to others, I might well appease myself to put up any 
reproaches in such an honourable society of fellow-sufferers, 
using no other defence. 

And were it that slander would be content to make an end 
where it first fixes, and not seek to cast out the like infamy 
upon each thing that hath but any relation to the person tra- 
duced, I should have pleaded against this confuter by no other 
advocates than those which I first commended, silence and 
sufferance, and speaking deeds against faltering words. But 
when I discerned his intent was not so much to smite at me, as 
through me to render odious the truth which I had written, and 
to stain with ignominy that evangelic doctrine which opposes 
the tradition of prelacy, I conceived myself to be now not as 
mine own person, but as a member incorporate into that truth 
whereof I was persuaded, and whereof I had declared openly 
to be a partaker. Whereupon I thought it my duty, if not to 
myself, yet to the religious cause I had in hand, not to leave on 
my garment the least spot or blemish in good name, so long as 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 69 

God should give me to say that which might wipe it off; lest 
those disgraces which I ought to suffer, if it so befall me, for 
my religion, through my default religion be made liable to 
suffer for me. And, whether it might not something reflect 
upon those reverent men, whose friend I may be thought in 
writing the Animadversions, was not my last care to consider : 
if I should rest under these reproaches, having the same com- 
mon adversary with them, it might be counted small credit for 
their cause to have found such an assistant, as this babbler 
hath devised me. What other thing in his book there is of 
dispute or question, in answering thereto I doubt not to be jus- 
tified ; except there be who will condemn me to have wasted 
time in throwing down that which could not keep itself up. As 
for others, who notwithstanding what I can allege have yet de- 
creed to misinterpret the intents of my reply, I suppose they 
would have found as many causes to have misconceived the 
reasons of my silence. 



Thus having spent his first onset, not in confuting, but in a 
reasonless defaming of the book, the method of his malice 
hurries him to attempt the like against the author ; not by 
proofs and testimonies, but * having no certain notice of 
me,* as he professes, ' further than what he gathers from the 
Animadversions,' blunders at me for the rest, and flings out 
stray crimes at a venture, which he could never, though he be 
a serpent, suck from anything that I have written, but from his 
own stuffed magazine and hoard of slanderous inventions, over 
and above that which he converted to venom in the drawing. 
To me, readers, it happens as a singular contentment ; and let 
it be to good men no light satisfaction, that the slanderer here 
confesses he has ' no further notice of me than his own con- 
jecture.' Although it had been honest to have inquired, 



JO MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

before he uttered such infamous words, and I am credibly 
informed he did inquire ; but finding small comfort from the 
intelligence which he received, whereon to ground the falsities 
which he had provided, thought it his likehest course, under a 
pretended ignorance, to let drive at random, lest he should 
lose his odd ends, which from some penurious book of charac- 
ters he had been cuUing out and would fain apply. Not caring 
to burden me with those vices, whereof, among whom my con- 
versation hath been, I have been ever least suspected ; perhaps 
not without some subtlety to cast me into envy, by bringing on 
me a necessity to enter into mine own praises. In which argu- 
ment I know every wise man is more unwillingly drawn to 
speak, than the most repining ear can be averse to hear. 

Nevertheless, since I dare not wish to pass this life unper- 
secuted of slanderous tongues, for God hath told us that to 
be generally praised is woeful, I shall rely on his promise to 
free the innocent from causeless aspersions : whereof nothing 
sooner can assure me, than if I shall feel him now assisting 
me in the just vindication of myself, which yet I could defer, 
it being more meet, that to those other matters of public de- 
batement in this book I should give attendance first, but that 
I fear it would but harm the truth for me to reason in her be- 
half, so long as I should suffer my honest estimation to He 
unpurged from these insolent suspicions. And if I shall be 
large, or unwonted in justifying myself to those who know me 
not, for else it would be needless, let them consider that a short 
slander will ofttimes reach further than a long apology ; and 
that he who will do justly to all men, must begin from knowing 
how, if it so happen, to be not unjust to himself. I must be 
thought, if this libeller (for now he shows himself to be so) can 
find belief, after an inordinate and riotous youth spent at the 
university, to have been at length 'vomited out thence.' 
For which commodious lie, that he may be encouraged in the 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7 1 

trade another time, I thank him ; for it hath given me an a[)l 
occasion to acknowledge pubUcly with all grateful mind, that 
more than ordinary favour and respect, which I found above 
any of my equals at the hands of those courteous and learned 
men, the fellows of that college wherein I spent some years : 
who, at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the man- 
ner is, signified many ways how much better it would content 
them that I would stay; as by many letters full of kindness 
and loving respect, both before that time, and long after, I was 
assured of their singular good affection towards me. ^ Which 
being likewise propense to all such as were for their studious 
and civil life worthy of esteem, I could not wrong their judg- 
ments and upright intentions, so much as to think I had that 
regard from them for other cause, than that I might be still 
encouraged to proceed in the honest and laudable courses, of 
which they apprehended I had given good proof. And to those 
ingenuous and friendly men, who were ever the countenancers 
of virtuous and hopeful wits, I wish the best and happiest 
thing that friends in absence wish one to another. 

As for the common approbation or dishke of that place, as 
now it is, that I should esteem or disesteem myself, or any 
other the more for that, too simple and too credulous is the 
confuter, if he think to obtain with me, or any right discerner. 
Of small practice were that physician, who could not judge by 
what both she and her sister hath of long time vomited, that 
the worser stuff she strongly keeps in her stomach, but the 
better she is ever kecking at, and is queasy. She vomits now 
out of sickness ; but ere it will be well with her, she must vomit 
by strong physic. In the meantime, that suburb sink, as this 
rude scavenger calls it, and more than scurrilously taunts it 
with the plague, having a worse plague in his middle entrail, 
that suburb wherein I dwell shall be in my account a more 
honourable place than his university. Which as in the time of 



72 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

her better health, and mine own younger judgment, I never 
greatly admired, so now much less. But he follows me to the 
city, still usurping and forging beyond his book notice, which 
only he affirms to have had ; ' and where my morning haunts 
are, he wisses not.' ; It is wonder that, being so rare an al- 
chymist of slander, he could not extract that, as well as the 
university vomit, and the suburb sink which his art could distil 
so cunningly ; but because his lembec fails him, to give him 
and envy the more vexation, I will tell him. \, 

Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home ; 
not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, 
but up and stirring, in winter often ere the sound of any bell 
awake men to labour or to devotion ; in summer as oft with 
the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good 
authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, 
or memory have its full fraught : then, with useful and gen- 
erous labours preserving the body's health and hardiness to 
render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the 
mind, to the cause of rehgion, and our country's liberty, when 
it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover 
their stations, rather than to see the ruin of our protestation,- 
and the inforcement of a slavish life. 

These are the morning practices : proceed now to the after- 
noon ; 'in playhouses,' he says, * and the bordelloes.' Your 
intelligence, unfaithful spy of Canaan? He gives in his evi- 
dence, that ' there he hath traced me.' Take him at his 
word, readers ; but let him bring good sureties ere ye dismiss 
him, that while he pretended to dog others, he did not turn 
in for his own pleasure : for so much in effect he concludes 
against himself, not contented to be caught in every other 
gin, but he must be such a novice as to be still hampered in 
his own hemp. In the Animadversions, saith he, I find the 
mention of old cloaks, false beards, night-walkers, and salt 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 73 

lotion ; therefore, the animadverter haunts playhouses and 
bordelloes ; for if he did not, how could he speak of such 
gear? Now that he may know what it is to be a child, and 
yet to meddle with edged tools, I turn his antistrophon upon 
his own head ; the confuter knows that these things are the 
furniture of playhouses and bordelloes, therefore, by the same 
reason, ' the confuter himself hath been traced in those places.' 
Was it such a dissolute speech, telling of some politicians who 
were wont to eavesdrop in disguises, to say they were often 
liable to a night- walking cudgeller, or the emptying of a urinal? 
What if I had writ, as your friend the author of the aforesaid 
mime, * Mundus alter et idem,' to have been ravished like 
some young Cephalus or Hylas, by a troop of camping house- 
wives in Viraginea, and that he was there forced to swear him- 
self an uxorious varlet ; then after a long servitude to have 
come into Aphrodisia, that pleasant country, that gave such 
a sweet smell to his nostrils among the shameless courtezans 
of Desvergonia? Surely he would have then concluded me 
as constant at the bordello, as the galley-slave at his oar. 

But since there is such necessity to the hearsay of a tire, a 
periwig, or a vizard, that plays must have been seen, what 
difficulty was there in that ? when in the colleges so many of 
the young divines, and those in next aptitude to divinity, have 
been seen so often upon the stage, writhing and unboning their 
clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trincu- 
loes, buffoons, and bawds ; prostituting the shame of that min- 
istry, which either they had, or were nigh havingi to the eyes 
of courtiers and court ladies, with their grooms and mademoi- 
selles. There, while they acted and overacted, among other 
young scholars, I was a spectator ; they thought themselves 
gallant men, and I thought them fools ; they made sport, and 
I laughed ; they mispronounced, and I misliked ; and, to 
make up the Atticism, they were out, and I hissed. Judge 



74 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

now whether so many good textmen were not sufficient to 
instruct me of false beards and vizards, without more exposi- 
tors; and how can this confuter take the face to object to 
me the seeing of that which his reverend prelates allow, and 
incite their young disciples to act? For if it be unlawful to 
sit and behold a mercenary comedian personating that which 
is least unseemly for a hireling to do, how much more blame- 
ful is it to endure the .sight of as vile things acted by persons 
either entered, or presently to enter, into the ministry ; and 
how much more foul and ignominious for them to be the 
actors ! 

But because as well by this upbraiding to me the bordelloes, 
as by other suspicious glancings in his book, he would seem 
privily to point me out to his readers, as one whose custom of 
life were not honest, but licentious, I shall entreat to be borne 
with, though I digress ; and in a way not often trod, acquaint 
ye with the sum of my thoughts in this matter, through the 
course of my years and studies : although I am not ignorant 
how hazardous it will be to do this under the nose of the en- 
vious, as it were in skirmish to change the compact order, and 
instead of outward actions, to bring inmost thoughts into front. 
And I must tell ye, readers, that by this sort of men I have 
been already bitten at ; yet shall they not for me know how 
slightly they are esteemed, unless they have so much learning 
as to read what in Greek awapoKaXia is, which, together 
with envy, is the common disease of those who censure books 
that are not for their reading. With me it flires now, as with 
him whose outward garment hath been injured and ill-be- 
dighted; for having no other shift, what help but to turn the 
inside outwards, especially if the lining be of the same, or, as 
it is sometimes, much better? So if my name and outward de- 
meanour be not evident enough to defend me, I must make trial 
if the discovery of my inmost thoughts can : wherein of two 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 75 

purposes, both honest and both sincere, the one perhaps I 
shall not miss ; although I fail to gain belief with others, of . 
being such as my perpetual thoughts shall here disclose me, I 
may yet not fail of success in persuading some to be such really 
themselves, as they cannot believe me to be more than what I 
feign. 

I had my time, readers, as others have, who have good 
learning bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where, 
the opinion was, it might be soonest attained ; and as the 
manner is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most 
commended. Whereof some were grave orators and historians, 
whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was, 
so I understood them ; others were the smooth elegiac poets, 
whereof the schools are not scarce, whom both for the pleasing 
sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found 
most easy, and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and for 
their matter, which what it is, there be few who know not, I 
was so allured to read, that no recreation came to me better 
welcome. For that it was then those years with me which are 
excused, though they be least severe, I may be saved the la- 
bour to remember ye. Whence having observed them to ac- 
count it the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to 
judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest 
to love those high perfections, which under one or other name 
they took to celebrate ; I thought with myself by every instinct 
and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false, that what 
emboldened them to this task, might with such diligence as 
they used embolden me ; and that what judgment, wit, or ele- 
gance was my share, would herein best appear, and best value 
itself, by how much more wisely, and with more love of virtue 
I should choose (let rude ears be absent) the object of not unhke 
praises. For albeit these thoughts to some will seem virtuous 
and commendable, to others only pardonable, to a third sort 



76 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

perhaps idle ; yet the mentioning of them now will end in 
serious. 

Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to them- 
selves such a reward, as the noblest dispositions above other 
things in this life have sometimes preferred : whereof not to be 
sensible when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a 
gross and shallow judgment, and withal an ungentle and swainish 
breast. For by the firm settUng of these persuasions, I became, 
to my best memory, so much a proficient, that if I found those 
authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of themselves, or 
unchaste of those names which before they had extolled ; 
this effect it wrought with me, from that time forward their 
art I still applauded, but the men I deplored ; and above 
them all, preferred the two famous renowners of Beatrice and 
Laura, who never write but honour of them to whom they 
devote their vQrse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts, 
without transgression. And long it was not after, when I was 
confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be fi-ustrate 
of his hope to write well he 7'e after in laudable things, ought hifn- 
self to be a true poe?n ; that is, a composition and pattern of the 
best and honourablest things ; not presui?ii?ig to sing high praises 
of heroic men, or fa?nous cities, unless he have in himself the 
experience and the practice of all that which is praiseivorthy. 
These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, 
an honest haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was, or 
what I might be, (which let envy call pride,) and lastly that 
modesty, whereof, though not in the title-page, yet here I 
may be excused to make some beseeming profession ; all these 
uniting the supply of their natural aid together, kept me still 
above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must de- 
ject and plunge himself, that can agree to saleable and 
unlawful prostitutions. 

Next, (for hear me out now, readers,) that I may tell ye 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 77 

whither my younger feet wandered ; I betook me among those 
lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn cantos 
the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and 
from hence had in renown over all Christendom. There I 
read it in the oath of every knight, that he should defend to 
the expense of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, 
the honour and chastity of virgin or matron; from whence 
even then I learned what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, 
to the defence of which so many worthies, by such a dear 
adventure of themselves, had sworn. And if I found in the 
story afterward, any of them, by word or deed, breaking that 
oath, I judged it the same fault of the poet, as that which is 
attributed to Homer, to have written indecent things of the 
gods. Only this my mind gave me, that every free and gentle 
spirit, without that oath, ought to be born a knight, nor needed 
to expect the guilt spur, or the laying of a sword upon his 
shoulder to stir him up both by his counsel and his arms, to 
secure and protect the weakness of any attempted chastity. 
So that even these books, which to many others have been 
the fuel of wantonness and loose living, I cannot think how, 
unless by divine indulgence, proved to me so many incite- 
ments, as you have heard, to the love and steadfast observa- 
tion of that virtue which abhors the society of bordelloes. 

Thus, from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years and 
the ceaseless round of study and reading led me to the shady 
spaces of philosophy ; but chiefly to the divine volumes of 
Plato, and his equal Xenophon : where, if I should tell ye 
what I learnt of chastity and love, I mean that which is truly 
so, whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her 
hand to those who are worthy ; (the rest are cheated with 
a thick intoxicating potion, which a certain sorceress, the 
abuser of love's name, carries about ;) and how the first and 
chiefest office of love begins and ends in the soul, producing 



yS MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and 
virtue. With such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be 
worth your listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have 
ye in a still time, when there shall be no chiding ; not in these 
noises, the adversary, as ye know, barking at the door, or 
searching for me at the bordelloes, where it may be he has 
lost himself, and raps up without pity the sage and rheumatic 
old prelatess with all her young Corinthian laity, to inquire for 
such a one. 

Last of all, not in time, but as perfection is last, that care 
was ever had of me, with my earliest capacity, not to be 
negligently trained in the precepts of the Christian religion : 
this that I have hitherto related, hath been to show, that 
though Christianity had been but slightly taught me, yet a cer- 
tain reservedness of natural disposition, and moral disciphne, 
learnt out of the noblest philosophy, was enough to keep me 
in disdain of far less incontinences than this of the bordello. 
But having had the doctrine of holy scripture unfolding 
those chaste and high mysteries, with timehest care infused, 
that ' the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body ; ' 
thus also I argued to myself, that if unchastity in a woman, 
whom St. Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandal and 
dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the image and 
glory of God, it must, though commonly not so thought, be 
much more deflouring and dishonourable ; in that he sins 
both against his own body, which is the perfecter sex, and 
his own glory, which is in the woman; and, that which is 
worst, against the image and glory of God, which is in him- 
self. Nor did I slumber over that place expressing such high 
rewards of ever accompanying the Lamb with those celestial 
songs to others inapprehensible, but not to those who were 
not defiled with women, which doubtless means fornication ; 
for marriage must not be called a defilement. ^ 



MTLTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 79 

Thus large I have purposely been, that if I have been justly 
taxed with this crime, it may come upon me, after all this my 
confession, with a tenfold shame : but if I have hitherto de- 
served no such opprobious word, or suspicion, I may hereby 
engage myself now openly to the faithful observation of what 
I have professed. 



I had said, that because the Remonstrant was so much 
offended with those who were tart against the prelates, sure 
he loved toothless satires, which I took were as improper as a 
toothed sleekstone. This champion from behind the arras cries 
out, that those toothless satires were of the Remonstrant's mak- 
ing ; and arms himself here tooth and nail, and horn, to boot, 
to supply the want of teeth, or rather of gums in the satires ; 
and for an onset tells me, that the simile of a sleekstone ' shows 
I can be as bold with a prelate as familiar with a laundress.' 
But does it not argue rather the lascivious promptness of 
his own fancy, who, from the harmless mention of a sleek- 
stone, could neigh out the remembrance of his old con- 
versation among the viragian trollops? For me, if he move 
me, I shall claim his own oath, the oath ex officio, against 
any priest or prelate in the kingdom, to have ever as much 
hated such pranks as the best and chastest of them all. 
That exception which I made against toothless satires, the 
confuter hopes I had from the satirist, but is far deceived : 
neither have I ever read the hobbling distich which he 
means. 

For this good hap I had from a careful education, to be 
inured and seasoned betimes with the best and elegantest 
authors of the learned tongues, and thereto brought an ear 
that could measure a just cadence, and scan without articulat- 
ing : rather nice and humorous in what was tolerable, than 



8o MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

patient to read every drawling versifier. Whence lighting 
upon this title of 'toothless satires,' I will not conceal ye 
what I thought, readers, that sure this must be some sucking 
satyr, who might have done better to have used his coral, and 
made an end of teething, ere he took upon him to wield a 
satire's whip. But when I heard him talk of ' scouring the 
rusty swords of elvish knights,' do not blame me if I changed 
my thought, and concluded him some desperate cutler. 



But now, readers, we have the port within sight ; his last sec- 
tion, which is no deep one, remains only to be forded, and then 
the wished shore. And here first it pleases him much, that he 
had descried me, as he conceives, to be unread in the councils. 
Concerning which matter it will not be unnecessary to shape 
him this answer : that some years I had spent in the stories of 
those Greek and Roman exploits, wherein I found many things 
both nobly done, and worthily spoken : when, coming in the 
method of time to that age wherein the church had obtained a 
Christian emperor, I so prepared myself, as being now to read 
examples of wisdom and goodness among those who were fore- 
most in the church, not elsewhere to be paralleled ; but to the 
amazement of what I expected I found it all quite contrary : 
excepting in some very few, nothing but ambition, corruption, 
contention, combustion ; insomuch that I could not but love 
the historian, Socrates, who, in the proem to his fifth book 
professes, * he was fain to intermix affairs of state ; for that it 
would be else an extreme annoyance to hear, in a continued 
discourse, the endless brabbles and counterplottings of the 
bishops.' 

Finding, therefore, the most of their actions in single to be 
weak, and yet turbulent, full of strife and yet flat of spirit ; and 
the sum of their best council there collected, to be most com- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHV 8 1 

monly in questions either trivial or vain, or else of short and 
easy decision, without that great bustle which they made ; I 
concluded that if their single ambition and ignorance was such, 
then certainly united in a council it would be much more ; and 
if the compendious recital of what they there did was so tedious 
and unprofitable, then surely to set out the whole extent of 
their tattle in a dozen volumes would be a loss of time irrecov- 
erable. Besides that which I had read of St. Martin, who for 
his last sixteen years could never be persuaded to be at any 
council of the bishops. And Gregory Nazianzen betook him to 
the same resolution, affirming to Procopius, * that of any coun- 
cil or meeting of bishops he never saw good end ; nor any 
remedy thereby of evil in the church, but rather an increase. 
For,' saith he, * their contentions and desire of lording no 
tongue is able to express.' 

I have not, therefore, I confess, read more of the councils, 
save here and there ; I should be sorry to have been such a 
prodigal of my time ; but, that which is better, I can assure 
this confuter, I have read into them all. And if I want any- 
thing yet I shall reply something toward that which in the 
defence of Murena was answered by Cicero to Sulpitius the 
lawyer. '■ If ye provoke me (for at no hand else will I under- 
take such a frivolous labour) I will in three months be an 
expert councilist.' For, be not deceived, readers, by men 
that would overawe your ears with big names and huge tomes 
that contradict and repeal one another, because they can cram 
a margin with citations. Do but winnow their chaff from their 
wheat, ye shall see their great heap shrink and wax thin, past 
behef. 



But this which comes next in view, I know not what good 
vein or humour took him when he let drop into his paper; I 



82 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

that was erewhile the ignorant, the loiterer, on the sudden by 
his permission am now granted ' to know something.' And 
that ' such a volley of expressions ' he hath met withal, * as he 
would never desire to have them better clothed.' For me, 
readers, although 1 cannot say that I am utterly untrained in 
those rules which best rhetoricians have given, or unacquainted 
with those examples which the prime authors of eloquence 
have written in any learned tongue ; yet true eloquence I find 
to be none, but the serious and hearty love of truth : and that 
whose mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to 
know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the 
knowledge of them into others, when such a man would speak, 
his words, (by what I can express,) Hke so many nimble and 
airy servitors, trip about him at command, and in well-ordered 
files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places. 

To Carlo Dati^ Noblettian of Florence. {Familiar Letters^ 

No. X.) 

When I came upon that passage where you write that you 
had sent me three letters before, which I now know to have 
been lost, then, in the first place, that sincere gladness of mine 
at the receipt of this one began to be infected and troubled 
with a sad regret, and presently a something heavier creeps in 
upon me, to which I am accustomed in very frequent grievings 
over my own lot : the sense, namely, that those whom the 
mere necessity of neighbourhood, or something else of a use- 
less kind, has closely conjoined with me, whether by accident 
or by the tie of law (sive casu, sive lege, conglutinavit), they 
are the persons, though in no other respect commendable, who 
sit daily in my company, weary me, nay, by heaven, all but plague 
me to death whenever they are jointly in the humour for it, 
whereas those whom habits, disposition, studies, had so hand- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 83 

somely made my friends, are now almost all denied me either by 
death or by most unjust separation of place, and are so for the 
most part snatched from my sight that I have to live well nigh 
in a perpetual soHtude. As to what you say that from the time 
of my departure from Florence you have been anxious about 
my health and always mindful of me, I truly congratulate my- 
self that a feeling has been equal and mutual in both of us, the 
existence of which on my side only I was perhaps claiming to 
my credit. Very sad to me also, I will not conceal from you, 
was that departure, and it planted stings in my heart which 
now rankle there deeper, as often as 1 think with myself of my 
reluctant parting, my separation as by a wrench, from so many 
companions at once, such good friends as they were, and living 
so pleasantly with each other in one city, far off indeed, but to 
me most dear. I call to witness that tomb of Damon, ever to 
be sacred and solemn to me, whose adornment with every 
tribute of grief was my weary task, till I betook myself at length 
to what comforts I could, and desired again to breathe a httle 
— I call that sacred gfave to witness that I have had no greater 
delight all this while than in recalling to my mind the most 
pleasant memory of all of you, and of yourself especially. 
This you must have read for yourself long ere now, if that poem 
reached you, as now first I hear from you it did. I had care- 
fully caused it to be sent, in order that, however small a proof 
of talent, it might, even in those few lines introduced into it 
emblem-wise, be no obscure proof of my love towards you. 
My idea was that by this means I should lure either yourself or 
some of the others to write to me ; for, if I wrote first, either I 
had to write to all, or I feared that, if I gave the preference to 
any one, I should incur the reproach of such others as came to 
know it, hoping as I do that very many are yet there alive 
who might certainly have a claim to this attention from me. 
Now, however, you first of all, both by this most friendly call 



84 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of your letter, and by your thrice repeated attention of writing 
before, have freed the reply for which I have been somewhile 
since in your debt from any expostulation from the others. 
There was, I confess, an additional cause for my silence in 
that most turbulent state of our Britain, subsequent to my 
return home, which obliged me to divert my mind shortly after- 
wards from the prosecution of my studies to the defence any- 
how of life and fortune. What safe retirement for Hterary 
leisure could you suppose given one among so many battles of 
a civil war, slaughters, flights, seizures of goods? Yet, even in 
the midst of these evils, since you desire to be informed about 
my studies, know that we have pubhshed not a few things in 
our native tongue ; which, were they not written in English, I 
would willingly send to you, my friends in Florence, to whose 
opinions, I attach very much value. The part of the Poems 
which is in Latin I will send shortly, since you wish it ; and I 
would have done so spontaneously long ago, but that, on 
account of the rather harsh sayings against the Pope of Rome 
in some of the pages, I had a suspicion they would not be quite 
agreeable to your ears. Now I beg of you that the indulgence 
you were wont to give, I say not to your own Dante and 
Petrarch in the same case, but with singular politeness to my 
own former freedom of speech, as you know, among you, the 
same you, Dati, will obtain (for of yourself, I am sure) from 
my other friends whenever I may be speaking of your religion 
in our peculiar way. 
London, April 21, 1647. 

On his Blindness 

When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent which is death to hide 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 85 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 5 

My true account, lest He, returning, chide ; 

* Doth God exact day labour, light denied? ' 
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, * God doth not need 
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 10 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state 

Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 

They also serve who only stand and wait.' 

To the most distinguished Leonard Philaras, of Athens, Am- 
bassador from the Duke of Parma to the King of France. 
{Familiar Letters, No. XH.) 

Your good will toward me, most honoured Leonard Philaras, 
as well as your high opinion of our Defence for the Fnglish 
People, I learnt from your letters, written partly on that sub- 
ject, to Mr. Augier, a man illustrious among us for his remark- 
able fidelity in diplomatic business for this republic : after 
which I received, through the same, your kind greeting, with 
your portrait, and the accompanying eulogium, certainly most 
worthy of your virtues, — and then, finally, a most polite letter 
from yourself. Be assured that I, who am not in the habit of 
despising the genius of the Germans, or even of the Danes or 
Swedes, cannot but value very much such an opinion of me 
from, you, a native of Attic Athens, who have besides, after 
happily finishing a course of Hterary studies among the Italians, 
reached such ample honours by great handhng of affairs. For, 
as the great Alexander himself, when carrying on war in the 
remotest parts of the earth, declared that he had undergone 
such great labours /^r the sake of the good opinion of the A the- 



86 MIL TON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

nians, why should not I congratulate myself, and think myself 
honoured to the highest, in having received praises from one 
in whom singly at this day the Arts of the old Athenians and 
all their celebrated excellencies appear, after so long an inter- 
val, to revive and rebloom? Remembering how many men of 
supreme eloquence were produced by that city, I have pleasure 
in confessing that whatever literary advance I have made I owe 
chiefly to steady intimacy with their writings from my youth 
upwards. But, were there in me, by direct gift from them, or 
a kind of transfusion, such a power of pleading that I could 
rouse our armies and fleets for the dehverance of Greece, the 
land of eloquence, from her Ottoman oppressor, — to which 
mighty act you seem almost to implore our aid — truly there 
is nothing which it would be more or sooner in my desire to 
do. For what did even the bravest men of old, or the most 
eloquent, consider more glorious or more worthy of them than, 
whether by pleading or by bravely acting, to make the Greeks 
free and self-governing? There is, however, something else 
besides to be tried, and in my judgment far the most impor- 
tant : namely, that some one should, if possible, arouse and 
rekindle in the minds of the Greeks, by the relation of that 
old story, the old Greek valour itself, the old industry, the old 
patience of labour. Could some one do that — and from no 
one more than yourself ought we to expect it, looking to the 
strength of your feehng for your native land, and the com- 
bination of the same with the highest prudence, skill in mili- 
tary affairs, and a powerful passion for the recovery of the 
ancient political liberty — then, I am confident, neither would 
the Greeks be wanting to themselves, nor any other nation 
wanting to the Greeks. Farewell. 
London, June, 1652. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 8/ 



To Henry Oldenburg, agefit for the city of Bremen in Loiver 
Saxony with the Commonwealth. {^Familiar Letters, ^o.XlN .) 

Your former letter, Honoured Sir, was given to me when 
your messenger, I was told, was on the point of return ; 
whence it happened that there was no opportunity of reply at 
that time. While I was afterwards purposing an early reply, 
some unexpected business took me off; but for which I should 
certainly not have sent you my book. Defence though it is 
called, in such a naked condition, without accompanying ex- 
cuse. And now I have your second letter, in which your 
thanks are quite disproportioned to the slenderness of the gift. 
It was in my mind, too, more than once, to send you back Eng- 
lish for your Latin, in order that, as you have learnt to speak 
our language more accurately and happily than any other 
foreigner of my acquaintance, you should not lose any oppor- 
tunity of writing the same ; which I believe you could do with 
equal accuracy. But in this, just as henceforward the impulse 
may be, let your own choice regulate. As to the substance of 
your communication, you plainly think with me that a * Cry ' 
of that kind 'to Heaven' transcends all bounds of human 
sense j the more impudent, then, must be he who declares so 
boldly he has heard it. You throw in a scruple after all as to 
who he is : but, formerly, whenever we talked on this subject, 
just after you had come hither from Holland, you seemed to 
have no doubt whatever but Morus was the author, inasmuch 
as that was the common report in those parts and no one else 
was named. If, then, you have now at last any more certain 
information on the point, be so good as to inform me. As to 
the treatment of the argument, I should wish (why should I 
dissemble?) not to differ from you, if only because I would 
fain know what there is to which one would more readily yield 



88 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

than the sincere judgment of friendly men, like yourself, and 
praise free from all flattery. To prepare myself, as you sug- 
gest, for other labours, — whether nobler or more useful I know 
not, for what can be nobler or more useful in human affairs than 
the vindication of Liberty ? — truly, if my health shall permit, 
and this blindness of mine, a sorer affliction than old age, and 
lastly the 'cries' of such brawlers as there have been about 
me, I shall be induced to that easily enough. An idle ease has 
never had charms for me, and this unexpected contest with the 
Adversaries of Liberty took me off against my will when I was 
intent on far different and altogether pleasanter studies : not 
that in any way I repent of what I have done, since it was 
necessary ; for I am far from thinking that I have spent any 
toil, as you seem to hint, on matters of inferior consequence. 
But of this at other time : meanwhile, learned Sir, not to de- 
tain you too long, farewell, and reckon me among your friends. 
Westminster, July 6, 1654. 

To Leonard Philaras, Athenian. {Familiar Letters, No. XV.) 

Though from boyhood I have ever been devoted to all things 
Greek, and especially to your native city, Athens, yet, in addi- 
tion to this, I have ever cherished the conviction that some- 
time that city would make a fair return to me for my devotion ; 
and in very truth that ancient genius of your most glorious land 
has fulfilled my prophecy ; for it has given me yoi^, a genuine 
son of Attica, and a true friend of mine ; who, though I was 
known to you only by my writings, yet addressed me most kindly 
by letter when separated by long distance, and later, coming un- 
expectedly to London, visited me in my blindness, and, in that 
misfortune which has made me to no one more distinguished, 
to many less so, you honour me still with the same kindness. 

Inasmuch as you urge me not to abandon all hope of re- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 89 

covering my sight, and write that you have at Paris a friend 
and relative who is a physician, Thevenot by name, a man of 
special eminence in treating eyes, whom you propose to con- 
sult with regard to mine, if you only learn from me enough to 
enable him to understand the causes and symptoms of the dis- 
ease;— in view of this I will do what you suggest, in order 
that I may not seem to reject the possibility of any help that 
may come from God's hand. 

It is now, I should say, ten years, more or less, since I found 
my sight growing dim and weak ; at the same time my spleen 
was affected and my internal organs were troubled with flatu- 
lency ; in the morning whenever I began to read anything in 
accordance with my usual custom, my eyes at once began to 
pain me and to shrink from the task, though they would ex- 
perience relief after a brief period of bodily exercise ; when- 
ever I looked at a lamp, a halo would seem to encircle it. 
Not long after this, at the left extremity of the left eye (for 
that eye lost its sight some years before the other), there 
gradually came on a dimness, which took from my view all 
objects situated on that side; objects directly in front of it, 
too, were seen less clearly whenever I happened to close the 
right eye. During the last three years the other eye has 
gradually lost its sight; but some months before my blind- 
ness became complete, everything that I saw, even though I 
was perfectly still, seemed to swim about, moving now to the 
right, now to the left. My forehead and temples suffer from 
constant burning sensations. This often affects my eyes with 
a certain drowsiness, from breakfast till evening ; so that I often 
think of the words of Phineus the seer of Salmydessus, in the 
Arg07iaiitica : 

Kapos 8e [Kiv dfX(f>eKd\v\(/ev 
Ilop^vpeo? * yatav 8e iripi^ i^OKrjcrc cf^ipecrOai 
vuoOev, djSXrjXP^ 8* iwl Kw/xari KiKXtr avavSos. 



90 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

But I must not omit to say that, while there still remained 
some little sense of sight, whenever I lay down in bed, and 
reclined on either side, bright hghts in abundance would flash 
from my eyes even when closed ; subsequently, as my power 
of sight grew daily less, dull colours would dart forth in the 
same way, accompanied with throbbings and noises within my 
head. But now the brightness seems to be dispelled, and, at 
times, absolute blackness, or blackness veined with an ashy 
grayness, as it were, is often wont to spread over my eyes. Yet 
the dimness which is there, both night and day, seems always 
more like something white than hke anything black, which, as 
the eye turns, allows the merest particle of light to enter, as 
through a tiny crack. But even though from this circumstance 
the physician might gather some little hope, yet I am resigned 
as to an absolutely incurable affliction ; and I often reflect that, 
though to each one of us are allotted many days of darkness, 
as the Wise Man reminds us, my darkness as yet, by God's 
special grace, passed, as it is, amid leisure and studies, and the 
voices of friends and their greetings, is far pleasanter than the 
darkness of death. But if, as it is written, ' man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God,' what reason is there why any one should not 
find comfort also in the reflection that one sees not by the eyes 
only, but by the light of God's guidance and providence. So 
long, at least, as He himself looks out for me, and provides for 
me, as He does, and so long as He leads and guides me with 
His hand through all the ways of life, I shall gladly bid my eyes 
keep their long hohday, since it has so seemed best to Him. 
But you, my dear Philaras, whatever be the issue, I greet with 
as stout and firm a heart as if I were Lynceus himself, 

Westminster, September 28, 1654. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY QI 



To Cyriac Skinner 

Cyriack, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear 

To outward view, of blemish or of spot. 

Bereft of hght, their seeing have forgot ; 

Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
Of sun, or moon^ or star, throughout the year, 5 

Or man or woman. Yet I argue not 

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 

Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? 

The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 10 

In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
Of which all Europe talks from side to side. 

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask 

Content, though blind, had I no better guide. 

On his deceased wife 

Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
Brought to me Hke Alcestis from the grave, 
- Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. 
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 5 
Purification in the Old Law did save. 
And such as yet once more I trust to have 
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, 
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. 
Her face was veiled ; yet to my fancied sight 10 

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
So clear as in no face with more delight. 
But, oh ! as to embrace me she incHned, 
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. 



92 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



To the most accomplished Emeric Bigot. {Familiar Letters, 
No. XXI.) 

. . . Many have made a figure by their pubHshed writings 
whose hving voice and daily conversation have presented next 
to nothing that was not low and common : if then, I can attain 
the distinction of seeming myself equal in mind and manners 
to any writings of mine that have been tolerably to the pur- 
pose, there will be the double effect that I shall so have added 
weight personally to my writings, and shall receive back by way 
of reflection from them credit, how small soever it may be, yet 
greater in proportion. For, in that case, whatever is right and 
laudable in them, that same I shall seem not more to have 
derived from authors of high excellence than to have fetched 
forth pure and sincere from the inmost feelings of my own 
mind and soul. I am glad, therefore, to know that you are 
assured of my tranquillity of spirit in this great affliction of loss 
of sight, and also of the pleasure I have in being civil and 
attentive in the reception of visitors from abroad. Why, in 
truth, should I not bear gently the deprivation of sight, when 
I may hope that it is not so much lost as revoked and 
retracted inwards, for the sharpening rather than the blunt- 
ing of my mental edge ? Whence it is that I neither think of 
books with anger, nor quite intermit the study of them, griev- 
ously though they have mulcted me, — were it only that I am 
instructed against such moroseness by the example of King 
Telephus of the Mysians, who refused not to be cured in the 
end by the weapon that had wounded him. . . . 

Westminster, March 24, 1658. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 93 

To Henry Oldenburg. (^Familiar Letters, No. XXIX.) 

... Of any such work as compiling the history of our 
political troubles, which you seem to advise, I have no 
thought whatever [longe absum] : they are worthier of silence 
than of commemoration. What is needed is not one to com- 
pile a good history of our troubles, but one who can happily 
end the troubles themselves ; for, with you, I fear lest, amid 
these our civil discords, or rather sheer madnesses, we shall 
seem to the lately confederated enemies of Liberty and Re- 
ligion a too fit object of attack, though in truth, they have not 
yet inflicted a severer wound on Religion than we ourselves 
have been long doing by our crimes. But God, as I hope, on 
His own account, and for His own glory, now in question, will 
not allow the counsels and onsets of the enemy to succeed 
as they themselves wish, whatever convulsions Kings and Car- 
dinals meditate and design. . . . 

Westminster, December 20, 1659. 



The following extract from the Prefatory address to the Par- 
liament (the restored Rump) shows no misgivings, on the part 
of Milton, in regard to the stability of the Commonwealth. 
But he must have been secretly hopeless. Cromwell had died 
the previous year, on September 3, and his son Richard, his 
successor, had abdicated on the 25th of the following May. A 
state of things little short of anarchy had set in before the 
pubHcation of Milton's pamphlet. But as late as near the end 
of February, 1660, he published ' The Ready and Easy Way 
to Establish a Free Commonwealth,' still, as it appears, unable 
to believe, desperate as was the state of things, that the Com- 
monwealth was in its death throes. On the 29th of the 
following May, Charles II. entered London amid the wildest 



94 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

acclamations of the people; and the commonwealth, for 
which Milton had fought to the bitter end, was no more, 
and he himself was in concealment. But he must have been 
assured that the principles for which he had fought would 
sooner or later assert themselves in spite of all opposition that 
could be brought against them, though he could hardly have 
thought that these principles would assert themselves so soon 
as they did. Fourteen years after his death, James II. was 
driven from the throne, and the constitutional basis of the 
monarchy underwent a quite radical change — a change 
largely, if not wholly, due to the work of Puritanism, which, 
it was generally supposed, at the Restoration of Charles II., 
had been completely undone. * It was,' says John Richard 
Green, ' from the moment of its (Puritanism's) seeming fall 
that its real victory began.' 

Ff-om ^ Consideratio7is touching the Likeliest Meafis to re??iove 
Hirelings out of the Ch u rch . ' (^A ugust, 1659) 

Owing to your protection. Supreme Senate ! this liberty of 
writing, which I have used these eighteen years on all oc- 
casions to assert the just rights and freedoms both of church 
and state, and so far approved, as to have been trusted with 
the representment and defence of your actions to all Chris- 
tendom against an adversary of no mean repute ; to whom 
should I address what I still publish on the same argument, 
but to you, whose magnanimous councils first opened and 
unbound the age from a double bondage under prelatical and 
regal tyranny ; above our own hopes heartening us to look 
up at last, like men and Christians, from the slavish dejection, 
wherein from father to son we were bred up and taught ; and 
thereby deserving of these nations, if they be not barbarously 
ingrateful, to be acknowledged, next under God, the authors 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 95 

and best patrons of religious and civil liberty, that ever these 
islands brought forth ? The care and tuition of whose peace 
and safety, after a short but scandalous night of interruption, 
is now again, by a new dawning of God's miraculous provi- 
dence among us, revolved upon your shoulders. And to 
whom more appertain these considerations, which I propound, 
than to yourselves, and the debate before you, though I trust 
of no difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not 
whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether 
ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best 
affected both to religion and to this your return, or whether 
ye will satisfy, which you never can, the covetous pretences 
and demands of insatiable hirelings, whose disaffection ye 
well know both to yourselves and your resolutions ? That I, 
though among many others in this common concernment, 
interpose to your deliberations what my thoughts also are ; 
your own judgment and the success thereof hath given me 
the confidence : which requests but this, that if I have pros- 
perously, God so favouring me, defended the public cause of 
this commonwealth to foreigners, ye would not think the 
reason and ability, whereon ye trusted once (and repent not) 
your whole reputation to the world, either grown less by more 
maturity and longer study, or less available in English than 
in another tongue ; but that if it sufficed some years past to 
convince and satisfy the unengaged of other nations in the 
justice of your doings, though then held paradoxal, it may as 
well suffice now against weaker opposition in matters, except 
here in England with a spirituaHty of men devoted to their 
temporal gain, of no controversy else among protestants. 
Neither do I doubt, seeing daily the acceptance which they 
find who in their petitions venture to bring advice also, and 
new models of a commonwealth, but that you will interpret 
it much more the duty of a Christian to offer what his con- 



96 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

science persuades him may be of moment to the freedom and 
better constituting of the church : since it is a deed of highest 
charity to help undeceive the people, and a work worthiest 
your authority, in all things else authors, assertors, and now 
recoverers of our liberty, to deliver us, the only people of all 
protestants left still undelivered, from the oppressions of a 
simonious decimating clergy, who shame not, against the 
judgment and practice of all other churches reformed, to 
maintain, though very weakly, their popish and oft-refuted 
positions ; not in a point of conscience wherein they might be 
blameless, but in a point of covetousness and unjust claim to 
other men's goods ; a contention foul and odious in any man, 
but most of all in ministers of the gospel, in whom contention, 
though for their own right, scarce is allowable. Till which 
grievances be removed, and religion set free from the 
monopoly of hirelings, I dare affirm that no model whatso- 
ever of a commonwealth will prove successful or undisturbed ; 
and so persuaded, implore divine assistance on your pious 
counsels and proceedings to unanimity in this and all other 

truth. 

— John Milton. 

Autobiographic passages in the ^Paradise Lost^ 

* Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born ! 

Or of the Eternal coeternal beam 

May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light. 

And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity — dwelt then in thee, 5 

Bright effluence of bright essence, increate ! 

Or hearest thou rather pure Ethereal stream, 

Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the Sun, 

Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



97 



Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest lo 

The rising World of waters dark and deep, 

Won from the void and formless Infinite ! 

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, 

Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained 

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight, 15 

Through utter and through middle Darkness borne, 

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre 

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night, 

Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down 

The dark descent, and up to reascend, 20 

Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe. 

And feel thy sovran vital lamp ; but thou 

Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 

So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, 25 

Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more 

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 

Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief 

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 30 

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, 

Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget 

Those other two equalled with me in fate, 

So were I equalled with them in renown, 

Blind Thamyris and blind Mseonides, 35 

And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old : 

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move 

Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird 

Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid, 

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 40 

Seasons return ; but not to me returns 

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn. 



q8 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divme ; 
But cloud instead and ever-during dark 45 

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair, 
Presented with a universal blank 
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased, 
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 50 

So much the rather thou, 'Celestial Light, 
Shine inward and the mind through all her powers 
Irradiate ; there plant eyes ; all mist from thence 
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
Of things invisible to mortal sight.' 55 

— Paradise Lost, Book iii. 1-55. 

' Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name 

If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine 

Following, above the Olympian hill I soar, 

Above the flight of Pegasean wing ! 

The meaning, not the name, I call ; for thou 5 

Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top 

Of old Olympus dwell'st ; but, heavenly-born. 

Before the hills appeared or fountain flowed. 

Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse. 

Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play 10 

In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased 

With thy celestial song. Up led by thee. 

Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed, 

An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air, 

Thy tempering. With like safety guided down, 15 

Return me to my native element ; 

Lest, from this flying steed unreined (as once 

Bellerophon, though from a lower clime) 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 99 

Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall, 

Erroneous there to wander and forlorn. 20 

Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound 

Within the visible Diurnal Sphere. 

Standing on Earth, not rapt above the pole, 

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged 

To hoarse or mute^ though fallen on evil days, 25 

On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues. 

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, 

And solitude ; yet not alone, while thou 

Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when Morn 

Purples the East. Still govern thou my song, 30 

Urania, and fit audience find, though few. 

But drive far off the barbarous dissonance 

Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race 

Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard 

In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears 35 

To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned 

Both harp and voice ; nor could the Muse defend 

Her son. So fail not thou who thee implores ; 

For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.' 

— Paradise Losf, Book vii. 1-39. 

' No more of talk where God or Angel Guest 

With Man, as with his friend, familiar used 

To sit indulgent, and with him partake 

Rural repast, permitting him the while 

Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change 5 

Those notes to tragic — foul distrust, and breach 

Disloyal, on the part of man, revolt 

And disobedience ; on the part of Heaven, 

Now alienated, distance and distaste. 

Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, 10 



100 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

That brought into this World a world of woe, 

Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, 

Death's harbinger. Sad task ! yet argument 

Not less but more heroic than the wrath 

Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued 15 

Thrice fugitive about Troy wall ; or rage 

Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused ; 

Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long 

Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son ; 

If answerable style I can obtain 20 

Of my celestial Patroness, who deigns 

Her nightly visitation unimplored. 

And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires 

Easy my unpremeditated verse. 

Since first this subject for heroic song 25 

Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late, 

Not sedulous by nature to indite 

Wars, hitherto the only argument 

Heroic deemed, chief mastery to dissect 

With long and tedious havoc fabled knights 30 

In battles feigned (the better fortitude 

Of patience and heroic martyrdom 

Unsung), or to describe races and games, 

Or tilting furniture, emblazoned shields, 

Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, 35 

Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights 

At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast 

Served up in hall with sewers and seneshals : 

The skill of artifice or office mean ; 

Not that which justly gives heroic name 40 

To person or to poem ! Me, of these 

Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument 

Remains, sufficient of itself to raise 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY lOI 

That name, unless an age too late, or cold 

Climate, or years, damp my intended wing 45 

Depressed ; and much they may if all be mine, 

Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.' 

— Paradise Lost, Book ix. 1-47. 

The following verses addressed to the seraph Abdiel, Milton, 
at the time he wrote them, might justly have taken to himself : 

'Servant of God, well done ! Well hast thou fought 
The better fight, who single hast maintained 
Against revolted multitudes the cause 
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms. 
And for the testimony of truth hast borne 
Universal reproach, far worse to bear 
Than violence ; for this was all thy care — 
To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds 
Judged thee perverse.' 

— Paradise Lost, Book vi. 29-37. 

Milton regarded himself as an Abdiel {i.e. as the name 
signifies in Hebrew, Servant of God), in the past struggle for 
civil and religious liberty ; like Abdiel, 

* Among innumerable false, unmoved. 

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified. 

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 

Nor number nor example with him wrought 

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind. 

Though single.' 

— Paradise Lost, Book v. 898-903, 

The following, from * Paradise Regained,' Book i. 196-208, 
Milton might have written of himself: 



102 MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

* Oh, what a multitude of thoughts at once 
Awakened in me swarm, while I consider 
What from within I feel myself, and hear 
What from without comes often to my ears, 
111 sorting with my present state compared ! 
When I was yet a child, no childish play 
To me was pleasing ; all my Diind was set 
Serious to learn and kfiow, and thence to do. 
What might be public good ; myself I thought 
Borfi to that end, born to promote all truth, 
All righteous things. Therefore, above my years, 
The Law of God I read, and found it sweet 3 
Made it my whole delight.' 

The following letter reveals the difficulties under which 
Milton, in his blindness, was, at times, obliged to write. 

To the very distinguished Peter Heiinbach, Councillor to the 
Elector of Brandenburg. i^Familiar Letters, No. XXXI.) 

Small wonder if, in the midst of so many deaths of my 
countrymen, in a year of such heavy pestilence, you believed, 
as you write you did, on the faith of some special rumour, 
that I also had been cut off. Such a rumour among your 
people is not displeasing, if it was the occasion of making 
known the fact that they were anxious for my safety, for then 
I can regard it as a sign of their good will to me. But, by the 
blessing of God, who had provided for my safety in a country 
retreat, I am still both alive and well, nor useless yet, I hope, 
for any duty that remains to be performed by me in this life. — 
That after so long an interval I should have come into your 
mind is very agreeable ; although, from your exuberant expres- 
sion of the matter, you seem to afford some ground for sus- 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY TO3 

pecting that you have rather forgotten me, professing as you 
do such an admiration of the marriage-union in me of so many 
different virtues. Truly, I should dread a too numerous prog- 
eny from so many forms of the marriage-union as you enu- 
merate, ~ were it not an estabHshed truth that virtues are 
nourished most and flourish most in straitened and hard 
circumstances) albeit I may say that one of the virtues of your 
list has not very handsomely requited me the hospitable recep- 
tion she had. For what you call policy, but I would rather 
have you call loyalty to one's country, — this particular lass, 
after inveigling me with her fair name, has almost expatriated 
me, so to speak. The chorus of the rest, however, makes a very 
fine harmony. •One's country is wherever it is well with one. — "^ 
And now I will conclude, after first begging you, if you find 
anything incorrectly written or without punctuation here, to 
impute that to the boy who has taken it down from my dicta- 
tion, and who is utterly ignorant of Latin, so that I was forced, 
while dictating, not without misery, to spell out the letters of 
the words one by one. Meanwhile, I am glad that the merits 
of one whom I knew as a young man of excellent hope have 
raised him to so honourable a place in his Prince's favour ; and 
I desire and hope all prosperity for you otherwise. Farewell ! 
London, August 15, 1666. 



104 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 



PASSAGES IN MILTON'S PROSE AND POETICAL 
WORKS IN WFilCH HIS IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY, 
INDIVIDUAL, DOMESTIC, CIVIL, POLITICAL, AND 
RELIGIOUS, IS EXPLICITLY SET FORTH 

From an early period of his life Milton, as has been seen, 
looked forward to the production of a great poem which would 
embody his highest ideals of the true life of man and which 
' after times would not wilhngly let die ' ; and all his studies 
and all his earhest efforts in poetry were, advisedly, prepara- 
tions for this prospective creation. He estimated learning 
wholly as a means of building himself up for the work to which 
he felt himself dedicated. He cared not for learned lumber 
which he could not bring into relation with his intellectual or 
spiritual vitality, or make use of in his creative work. ' Learn- 
ing for its own sake ' was no part of his creed as a scholar. He 
may be said to speak for himself in the words which he gives 
to the Saviour in the 'Paradise Regained' (Book iv. 322 ei 
seq.) : 

* who reads 

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not 

A spirit and judgment equal or superior, 

— And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek? — 

Uncertain and unsettled still remains. 

Deep -versed in books and shallow in himself. 

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys 
■ And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge ; 

As children gathering pebbles on the shore.' 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 105 

And so, too, in the words which he gives to the angel Raphael, 
in the 'Paradise Lost' (Book vii. 126 et seq.) : 

' But knowledge is as food, and needs no less 
Her temperance over appetite, to know 
In measure what the mind may well contain ; 
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns 
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.' 

Wordsworth had as firm an assurance as Milton had, that he 
was a dedicated spirit ; but he did not attach the importance 
which Milton did to great acquisitions of knowledge as a means 
to the fulfilment of his mission. But Wordsworth's sense of his 
mission as a poet called for an expression of his soul-experi- 
ences in occasional poems. The composition of a great epic 
would have shut him off from expressing, day by day, the rela- 
tions of Nature to the soul, as those relations were revealed 
to him — relations with which wide learning had comparatively 
little to do. 

Milton was constitutionally, as well as by his education and 
associations, a Puritan. And the state of the times in which he 
lived cooperated with his mental and moral constitution, and with 
his education, to make the conflict of Good and Evil, the great 
Jact^foi'him, of the world, and, iiideed, of the Universe. To pic- 
ture in the most impressive way possible this great fact, and the 
sure triumph of Good over Evil, however long that triumph may 
be retarded, he early felt to be his mission as a poet. And he 
looked upon the acquisition of great stores of learning as part 
of the indispensable equipment for one, who, in this conflict, 
would range himself on the side of Good. All history and all 
literatures, all sciences, religions, mythologies, were to be ex- 
plored, and made subservient, as far as might be, by him who 
would fight the good fight. The accumulated knowledge and 
wisdom of mankind was for him a part of that panoply of God 



I06 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

which St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians (vi. ii), com- 
mands to put on, in order to * be able to stand against the 
wiles of the devil.' 

But learning was but a part, and however indispensable, an 
inferior part, of this panoply. The soul's essential self, as the 
medium of the divine, must give the prime efficacy to whatever 
is done in the mighty conflict of good with evil. In the words 
of Browning's 'Sordello,' 'a poet must be earth's essential king,' 
and he is that by virtue of his exerting, or shedding the influ- 
ence of, his essential personality in his poetical creations. In 
his 'Apology for Smectymnuus,' he says, 'And long it was 
not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who 
would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in 
laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, a com- 
position and pattern of the best and honourablest things ; not 
presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, 
unless he have iti himself the experience and the practice of all 
that which is praiseivorthy.^ * 

And in his * Reason of Church Government urged against 
Prelaty,' he speaks of the great work which looms hazily up in 
the future, as one 'not to be obtained by the invocation of 
dame memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer 
to that eternal Spirit, ivho can enrich with all utterance and 
knoivledge, and sends out his Seraphim^ with the hallowed fire of 
his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases : to 
this must be added industrious and select reading, steady obser- 
vation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs ; ' 
etc. In his invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the opening of the 
' Paradise Lost,' he says : 

' And chiefly thou, O Spirit that dost prefer 
I Before all temples the upright heart and pure, 
Instruct me.' 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 107 

And in the 'Paradise Regained' (Book i. 8-15) : 

' Thou Spirit, who ledst this glorious Eremite 
Into the desert, his victorious field, 
Against the spiritual foe, and broughtst him thence 
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire^ 
As thou art wont, my pro7npted song, else mute, 
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds, 
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds 
Above heroic' 

Milton did not entertain the restricted view of inspiration 
which is still entertained by large numbers of good people, 
namely, that only the writers of the Old and New Testaments 
were inspired. With him, every soul, raised, by ardent faith 
and sanctified desire, to a high plane of spirituality, and thus 
brought into relationship with the highest spiritual forces, was, 
in a measure, inspired. 

What follows the quotation just made, from St. Paul's Epistle 
to the Ephesians (vi. 12-18), is the best expression which may 
be given of Milton's actuating creed : 

' We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against princi- 
palities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Where- 
fore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be 
able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and 
having on the breastplate of righteousness ; and your feet shod 
with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; above all, taking 
the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all 
the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salva- 
tion, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God : 
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, 



I08 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication 
for all saints.' 

It would seem that this grand passage from the Apostle must 
occur to every reader of Milton as the best expression of the 
law according to which he lived and wrote. 

The intellectual and spiritual preparation which Milton felt 
necessary, and was making, with an undivided devotion, for 
the production of a great poem, determined his idea of liberty 
when, bidding farewell, for a time (he could not have thought 
that it would be for so long a time), to the loved haunts of 
the Muses, he engaged as a polemic prose writer, in the 
struggle for domestic, civil, political, and religious liberty. 
This idea, which may be said to be the informing principle 
of his prose works, is that inward liberty is the condition of 
true outward liberty. The latter cannot exist without the 
former. /What is often miscalled liberty is license ; which only 
leads to a more degraded inward servitude. For, in the 
absence of wholesome restraint, and of discipline either self- 
imposed, or imposed by those in authority, men in their weak- 
ness become more and more subjected to their lower nature. 
This idea is beautifully presented in the following passage : i 

From * The Reason of Church Goverfiment urged against 
Prelaty: Chap. I. 

' There is not that thing in the world of more grave and urgent 
importance throughout the whole life of man, than is Discipline. - 
What need I instance? He that hath read with judgment of 
nations and commonwealths, of cities and camps, of peace and 
war, sea and land, will readily agree that the flourishing and 
decaying of all civil societies, all the moments and turnings 
of human occasions, are moved to and fro as upon the axle of 
discipline. So that whatsoever power or sway in mortal things 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 109 

weaker men have attributed to Fortune, I durst with more 
confidence (the honour of Divine Providence ever saved) 
ascribe either to the vigour or the slackness of disciphne. 
V Nor is there any sociable perfection in this life, civil or sacred, 
that can be above discipline ; ; but she is that which with her 
musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof to- 
gether. Hence in those perfect armies of Cyrus in Xenophon, 
and Scipio in the Roman stories, the excellence of military 
skill was esteemed, not by the not needing, but by the 
readiest submitting to the edicts of their commander. And 
certainly discipline is not only the removal of disorder; but 
if any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very 
visible shape and image of Virtue, whereby she is not only 
seen in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly 
paces, as she walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice 
audible to mortal ears. Yea, the angels themselves, in whom 
no disorder is feared, as the aposUe that saw them in his 
rapture describes, are distinguished and quaternioned into 
their celestial princedoms and satrapies, according as God 
himself has writ his imperial decrees through the great 
provinces of heaven. The state also of the blessed in para- 
dise, though never so perfect, is not therefore left without 
discipline, whose golden surveying reed marks out and 
measures every quarter and circuit of New Jerusalem. Yet 
is it not to be conceived, that those eternal effluences of 
sanctity and love in the glorified saints should by this means 
be confined and cloyed with repetition of that which is pre- 
scribed, but that our happiness may orb itself into a 
thousand vagancies of glory and delight, and with a kind of 
eccentrical equation be, as it were, an invariable planet of 
joy and felicity; how much less can we believe that God 
would leave his frail and feeble, though not less beloved 
church here below, to the perpetual stumble of conjecture 



no MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

and disturbance in this our dark voyage, without the card 
and compass of discipline? Which is so hard to be of man's 
making, that we may see even in the guidance of a civil state 
to worldly happiness, it is not for every learned, or every wise 
man, though many of them consult in common, to invent or 
frame a discipline : but if it be at all the work of man, it must 
be of such a one as is a true knower of himself, and in whom 
contemplation and practice, wit, prudence, fortitude, and 
eloquence must be rarely met, both to comprehend the 
hidden causes of things, and span in his thoughts all the 
various effects that passion or complexion can work in man's 
nature ; and hereto must his hand be at defiance with gain, 
and his heart in all virtues heroic ; so far is it from the ken 
of these wretched projectors of ours, that bescrawl their 
pamphlets every day with new forms of government for our 
church. And therefore all the ancient lawgivers were either 
truly inspired, as Moses, or were such men as with authority 
enough might give it out to be so, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, 
because they wisely forethought that men would never quietly 
submit to such a discipline as had not more of God's hand in 
it than man's. To come within the narrowness of house- 
hold government, observation will show us many deep 
counsellors of state and judges to demean themselves in- 
corruptly in the setded course of affairs, and many worthy 
preachers, upright in their Hves, powerful in their audience : 
but look upon either of these men when they are left to 
their own disciplining at home, and you shall soon perceive, 
for all their single knowledge and uprightness, how deficient 
they are in the regulating of their own family ; not only in 
what may concern the virtuous and decent composure of 
their minds in their several places, but, that which is of a 
lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the 
outward vessel, their body, in health or sickness, rest or 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY \\\ 

labour, diet or abstinence, whereby to render it more pliant 
to the soul, and useful to the commonwealth ; which if men 
were but as good to discipHne themselves, as some are to 
tutor their horses and hawks, it could not be so gross in most 
households. If then it appear so hard, and so little known 
how to govern a house well, which is thought of so easy 
discharge, and for every man's undertaking, what skill of 
man, what wisdom, what parts can be sufficient to give laws 
and ordinances to the elect household of God ? If we could 
imagine that he had left it at random without his provident 
and gracious ordering, who is he so arrogant, so presumptuous, 
that durst dispose and guide the living ark of the Holy Ghost, 
though he should find it wandering in the field of Beth- 
shemesh, without the conscious warrant of some high calling? 
But no profane insolence can parallel that which our prelates 
dare avouch, to drive outrageously, and shatter the holy ark 
of the church, not borne upon their shoulders with pains and 
labour in the word, but drawn with rude oxen, their officials, 
and their own brute inventions. Let them make shows of 
reforming while they will, so long as the church is mounted 
upon the prelatical cart, and not, as it ought, between the 
hands of the ministers, it will but shake and totter ; and he 
that sets to his hand, though with a good intent to hinder the 
shogging of it, in this unlawful waggonry wherein it rides, let 
him beware it be not fatal to him, as it was to Uzza.' 

The following are some of the many explicit statements of Mil- 
ton's idea of Liberty, which occur in his Prose Works. They may 
be said to be variations on the saying of the Saviour (John viii. 
31, 32), * If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples ; 
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free ' : 

* What though the brood of Belial, the drafif of men, to whom 
no liberty is pleasing, but unbridled and vagabond lust without 



112 ■ MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

pale or partition, will laugh broad perhaps, to see so great a 

strength of scripture mustering up in favour, as they suppose, 

of their debaucheries ; they will know better when they shall 

hence learn, that honest Hberty is the greatest foe to dishonest 

licence.' 

— The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. 

' Real and substantial liberty is rather to be sought from 

within than from without ; its existence depends, not so much 

on the terror of the sword, as in sobriety of conduct and 

integrity of hfe.' 

— Second Defence of the People of England. 

' The exposition here alleged is neither new nor licentious, 
as some now would persuade the commonalty, although it be 
nearer truth that nothing is more new than those teachers 
themselves, and nothing more licentious than some known to 
be, whose hypocrisy yet shames not to take offence at this 
doctrine for hcence, whereas indeed they fear it would re- 
move licence, and leave them few companions.' 

— Tetrachordon. 

' In every commonwealth, when it decays, corruption makes 
two main steps : first, when men cease to do according to the 
inward and uncompelled actions of virtue, caring only to live 
by the outward constraint of law, and turn this simplicity of 
real good into the craft of seeming so by law. To this hypo- 
critical honesty was Rome declined in that age wherein Horace 
lived, and discovered it to Quinctius ' : 

* Whom do we count a good man, whom but he 
Who keeps the laws and statutes of the Senate? 
Who judges in great suits and controversies? 
Whose witness and opinion wins the cause ? 
But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood 
Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.' 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY I13 

* The next declining is, when law becomes now too strait for 
the secular manners, and those too loose for the cincture of 
law. This brings in false and crooked interpretations to eke 
out law, and invents the subtle encroachments of obscure tra- 
ditions hard to be disproved.* 

— TetracJiordon. 

* If men within themselves would be governed by reason, 
and not generally give up their understanding to a double 
tyranny of custom from without, and blind affections within, 
they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the 
tyrant of a nation. But, being slaves within doors, no wonder 
that they strive so much to have the public state conformably 
governed to the inward vicious rule by which they govern 
themselves. [For, indeed, none can love freedom heartily but 
good men ; the rest love not freedom but licence, which never 
hath more scope or more indulgence than under tyrants. \ 
Hence is it that tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much 
in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile ; but in 
whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear 
in earnest, as by right their masters ; against them lies all their 
hatred and suspicion. Consequently, neither do bad men hate 
tyrants, but have been always readiest, with the falsified names 
of loyalty and obedience, to colour over their base compli- 
ances.' 

— The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. 

' He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, 
and fears, is more than a king.' 

' For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in 
a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a further 
slavery ; for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to 
be handled by just and virtuous men ; to bad and dissolute, 
it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands : neither 
I 



114 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill 
to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how 
to remove it wisely ; what good laws are wanting, and how to 
frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom 
which they merit, and the bad, the curb which they need. But 
to do this, and to know these exquisite proportions, the heroic 
wisdom which is required, surmounted far the principles of 
these narrow poHticians : what wonder then if they sunk as 
these unfortunate Britons before them, entangled and oppressed 
with things too hard and generous, above their strain and 
temper?' 

— The History of BritaUi, Book iii. 

*But when God hath decreed servitude on a sinful nation, 
fitted by their own vices for no condition but servile, all estates 
of government are alike unable to avoid it.' 

— The History of Britain, Book v. 

Peroration of ' The Second Defence of the People of England'' 

' It is of no little consequence, O citizens, by what principles 
you are governed, either in acquiring Hberty, or in retaining 
it when acquired. And unless that liberty which is of such a 
kind as arms can neither procure nor take away, which alone 
is the fruit of piety, of justice, of temperance, and unadulter- 
ated virtue, shall have taken deep root in your minds and 
hearts, there will not long be wanting one who will snatch 
from you by treachery what you have acquired by arms. War 
has made many great whom peace makes small. If after being 
released from the toils of war, you neglect the arts of peace, 
if your peace and your liberty be a state of warfare, if war be 
your only virtue, the summit of your praise, you will, beheve 
me, soon find peace the most adverse to your interests. Youi' 
peace will be only a more distressing war ; and that wliich you 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY II5 

imagined liberty will prove the worst of slavery. Unless by the 
means of piety, not frothy and loquacious, but operative, un- 
adulterated, and sincere, you clear the horizon of the mind 
from those mists of superstition which arise from the ignorance 
of true religion, you will always have those who will bend your 
necks to the yoke as if you were brutes, who, notwithstanding 
all your triumphs, will put you up to the highest bidder, as if 
you were mere booty made in war ; and will find an exuber- 
ant source of wealth in your ignorance and superstition. Un- 
less you will subjugate the propensity to avarice, to ambition, 
and sensuality, and expel all luxury from yourselves and your 
families, you will find that you have cherished a more stubborn 
and intractable despot at home, than you ever encountered in 
the field ; and even your very bowels will be continually teem- 
ing with an intolerable progeny of tyrants. Let these be the 
first enemies whom you subdue ; this constitutes the campaign 
of peace ; these are triumphs, difficult indeed, but bloodless ; 
and far more honourable than those trophies which are pur- 
chased only by slaughter and by rapine. Unless you are victors 
in this service, it is in vain that you have been victorious over 
the despotic enemy in the field. For if you think that it is a 
more grand, a more beneficial, or a more wise policy, to invent 
subtle expedients for increasing the revenue, to multiply our 
naval and military force, to rival in craft the ambassadors of 
foreign states, to form skilful treaties and alliances, than to 
administer unpolluted justice to the people, to redress the in- 
jured and to succour the distressed, and speedily to restore to 
every one his own, you are involved in a cloud of error ; and 
too late will you perceive, when the illusion of those mighty 
benefits has vanished, that in neglecting these, which you now 
think inferior considerations, you have only been precipitating 
your own ruin and despair. The fidelity of enemies and allies 
is frail and perishing, unless it be cemented by the principles 



Il6 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

of justice; that wealth and those honours, which most covet, 
readily change masters ; they forsake the idle, and repair where 
virtue, where industry, where patience flourish most. Thus 
nation precipitates the downfall of nation ; thus the more 
sound part of one people subverts the more corrupt ; thus you 
obtained the ascendant over the royalists. If you plunge into 
the same depravity, if you imitate their excesses, and hanker 
after the same vanities, you will become royalists as well as 
they, and liable to be subdued by the same enemies, or by 
others in your turn ; who, placing their rehance on the same 
religious principles, the same patience, the same integrity and 
discretion which made you strong, will deservedly triumph over 
you who are immersed in debauchery, in the luxury and 
the sloth of kings. Then, as if God was weary of protecting 
you, you will be seen to have passed through the fire that you 
might perish in the smoke ; the contempt which you will then 
experience will be great as the admiration which you now 
enjoy ; and, what may in future profit others, but cannot 
benefit yourselves, you will leave a salutary proof what great 
things the solid reality of virtue and of piety might have 
effected, when the mere counterfeit and varnished resemblance 
could attempt such mighty achievements, and make such con- 
siderable advances towards the execution. For, if either 
through your want of knowledge, your want of constancy, or 
your want of virtue, attempts so noble, and actions so glorious, 
have had an issue so unfortunate, it does not therefore follow 
that better men should be either less daring in their projects 
or less sanguine in their hopes. But from such an abyss of 
corrupdon into which you so readily fall, no one, not even 
Cromwell himself, nor a whole nation of Brutuses, if they were 
alive, could deliver you if they would, or would deliver you if 
they could. For who would vindicate your right of unrestrained 
suflrage, or of choosing what representatives you liked best, 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY I17 

merely that you mi^ht elect the creatures of your own faction, 
whoever they might be, or him, however small might be his 
worth, who would give you the most lavish feasts, and enable 
you to drink to the greatest excess? Thus not wisdom and 
authority, but turbulence and gluttony, would soon exalt the 
vilest miscreants from our taverns and our brothels, from our 
towns and villages, to the rank and dignity of senators. For 
should the management of the republic be entrusted to persons 
to whom no one would willingly entrust the management of his 
private concerns ; and the treasury of the state be left to the 
care of those who had lavished their own fortunes in an infa- 
mous prodigality ? Should they have the charge of the public 
purse, which they would soon convert into a private, by their 
unprincipled peculations? Are they fit to be the legislators of 
a whole people who themselves know not what law, what reason, 
what right and wrong, what crooked and straight, what licit and 
illicit means? who think that all power consists in outrage, all 
dignity in the parade of insolence? who neglect every other 
consideration for the corrupt qualification of their friendships, 
or the prosecution of their resentments? who disperse their 
own relations and creatures through the provinces, for the sake 
of levying taxes and confiscating goods ; men, for the greater 
part, the most profligate and vile, who buy up for themselves 
what they pretend to expose to sale, who thence collect an 
exorbitant mass of wealth, which they fraudulently divert from 
the pubhc service ; who thus spread their pillage through the 
country, and in a moment emerge from penury and rags to a 
state of splendour and of wealth? Who could endure such 
thievish servants, such vicegerents of their lords? Who could 
believe that the masters and the patrons of a banditti could be 
the proper guardians of liberty? or who would suppose that he 
should ever be made one hair more free by such a set of pub- 
lic functionaries, (though they might amount to five hundred 



Il8 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

elected in this manner from the counties and boroughs,) when 
among them who are the very guardians of hberty, and to whose 
custody it is committed, there must be so many, who know not 
either how to use or to enjoy Hberty, who neith. understand 
the principles nor merit the possession? But, what is worthy 
of remark, those who are the most unworthy of hberty are wont 
to behave most ungratefully towards their deliverers. Among 
such persons, who would be wilHng either to fight for liberty, 
or to encounter the least peril in its defence ? It is not agree- 
able to the nature of things that such persons ever should be 
free. However much they may brawl about liberty, they are 
slaves, both at home and abroad, but without perceiving it ; 
and when they do perceive it, like unruly horses that are im- 
patient of the bit, they will endeavour to throw off the yoke, 
not from the love of genuine Hberty, (which a good man only 
loves and knows how to obtain,) but from the impulses of pride 
and little passions. But though they often attempt it by arms, 
they wiU make no advances to the execution ; they may change 
their masters, but will never be able to get rid of their servi- 
tude. This often happened to the ancient Romans, wasted by 
excess, and enervated by luxury : and it has still more so been 
the fate of the moderns ; when, after a long interval of years, 
they aspired, under the auspices of Crescentius Nomentanus, 
and afterwards of Nicolas Rentius, who had assumed the title 
of Tribune of the People, to restore the splendour and rees- 
tablish the government of ancient Rome. For, instead of fret- 
ting with vexation, or thinking that you can lay the blame on 
any one but yourselves, know that to be free is the same thing 
as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be fru- 
gal and abstinent, and, lastly, to be magnanimous and brave ; 
so to be the opposite of, all these is the same as to be a slave; 
and it usually happens, by the appointment, and as it were 
retributive justice, of the Deity, that that people which cannot 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY II9 

govern themselves, and moderate their passions, but crouch 
under the slavery of their lusts, should be delivered up to the 
sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an 
involuntary s( v^itude. It is also sanctioned by the dictates of 
justice and by the constitution of nature, that he who from the 
imbecility or derangement of his intellect, is incapable of gov- 
erning himself, should, like a minor, be committed to the gov- 
ernment of another ; and least of all should he be appointed 
to superintend the affairs of others or the interest of the state. 
You, therefore, who wish to remain free, either instantly be 
wise, or, as soon as possible, cease to be fools ; if you think 
slavery an intolerable evil, learn obedience to reason and the 
government of yourselves ; and, finally, bid adieu to your dis- 
sensions, your jealousies, your superstitions, your outrages, your 
rapine, and your lusts. Unless you will spare no pains to effect 
this, you must be judged unfit, both by God and mankind, to 
be entrusted with the possession of liberty and the adminis- 
tration of the government ; but will rather, like a nation in a 
state of pupilage, want some active and courageous guardian to 
undertake the management of your affairs. With respect to 
myself, whatever turn things may take, I thought that my exer- 
tions on the present occasion would be serviceable to my 
country ; and, as they have been cheerfully bestowed, I hope 
that they have not been bestowed in vain. And I have not 
circumscribed my defence of liberty within any petty circle 
around me, but have made it so general and comprehensive, 
that the justice and the reasonableness - of such uncommon 
occurrences, explained and defended, both among my country- 
men and among foreigners, and which all good men cannot but 
approve, may serve to exalt the glory of my country, and to 
excite the imitation of posterity. If the conclusion do not 
answer to the beginning, that is their concern ; I have dehvered 
my testimony, I would almost say, have erected a monument, 



120 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

that will not readily be destroyed, to the reality of those singu- 
lar and mighty achievements which were above all praise. As 
the epic poet, who adheres at all to the rules of that species of 
composition, does not profess to describe the whole Hfe of the 
hero whom he celebrates, but only some particular action of 
his hfe, as the resentment of Achilles at Troy, the return of 
Ulysses, or the coming of ^neas into Italy ; so it will be suffi- 
cient, either for my justification or apology, that I have heroi- 
cally celebrated at least one exploit of my countrymen ; I pass 
by the rest, for who could recite the achievements of a whole 
people ? If, after such a display of courage and of vigour, you 
basely relinquish the path of virtue, if you do anything un- 
worthy of yourselves, posterity will sit in judgment on your 
conduct. They will see that the foundations were well laid; 
that the beginning (nay, it was more than a beginning) was 
glorious ; but with deep emotions of concern will they regret, 
that those were wanting who might have completed the struc- 
ture. They will lament that perseverance was not conjoined 
with such exertions and such virtues. They will see that there 
was a rich harvest of glory, and an opportunity afforded for the 
greatest achievements, but that men only were wanting for the 
execution ; while they were not wanting who could rightly 
counsel, exhort, inspire, and bind an unfading wreath of praise 
round the brows of the illustrious actors in so glorious a scene.' 

This informing idea of the Prose Works comes out ex- 
plicitly in the second of the sonnets, 

On the Detraction which followed tipon my Writing Certain 

Treatises 

* I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs 
By the known rules of ancient liberty. 
When straight a barbarous noise environs me 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY I2I 

Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs : 

As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs 5 

Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny, 

Which after held the sun and moon in fee. 

But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, 

That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood. 

And still revolt when truth would set them free. 10 

Licence they mean when they cry liberty ; 

For who loves that must first be wise and good ; 

But from that mark how far they rove we see. 

For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.' 

Again it appears, and in the most explicit form, in the ' Para- 
dise Lost,' Book xii. 82-101. The angel Michael, in his 
discourse with Adam, on the mount of speculation, says : 

' yet know withal. 
Since thy original lapse, true liberty 
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells 
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being. 85 

Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed, 
Immediately inordinate desires 
And upstart passions catch the government 
From Reason, and to servitude reduce 
Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits 90 

Within himself unworthy powers to reign 
Over free reason, God, in judgment just, 
Subjects him from without to violent lords, 
Who oft as undeservedly enthral 

His outward freedom. Tyranny must be, 95 

Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse. 
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low 
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong, 



122 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

But justice and some fatal curse annexed, 

Deprives them of their outward Hberty, loo 

Their inward lost.' 

In the ' Samson Agonistes/ Samson says to the Chorus (vv. 
268-276, and here Milton may be said virtually to speak, as he 
does throughout the drama, m propria persona) : 

' But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt 
And by their vices brought to servitude. 
Than to love bondage more than Hberty, 270 

Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty ; 
And to despise, or envy, or suspect 
Whom God hath of his special favour raised 
As their deliverer? if he aught begin. 
How frequent to desert him, and at last 275 

To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?' 

In the 'Paradise Regained,' Book ii. 410-486, Satan says 
to the Saviour : 

' all thy heart is set on high designs, 410 

High actions ; but wherewith to be achieved ? 
Great acts require great means of enterprise ; 
Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, 
A carpenter thy father known, thyself 
Bred up in poverty and straits at home, 415 

Lost in a desert here, and hunger-bit. 
Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire 
To greatness? whence authority derivest? 
What followers, what retinue canst thou gain? 
Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, 420 

Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost ? 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 123 

Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms. 

What raised Antipater, the Edomite, 

And his son Herod placed on Judah's throne — 

Thy throne — but gold that got him puissant friends? 425 

Therefore, if at great things thou wouldest arrive. 

Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap, — 

Not difficult, if thou hearken to me. 

Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand ; 

They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain, 430 

While virtue, valour, wisdom, sit in want.' 

To whom thus Jesus patiently replied : 

' Yet wealth without these three is impotent 

To gain dominion, or to keep it gained ; 

Witness those ancient empires of the earth, 435 

In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved. 

But men endued with these have oft attained 

In lowest poverty to highest deeds ; 

Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd-lad. 

Whose offspring on the throne of Judah sat 440 

So many ages, and shalt yet regain 

That seat, and reign in Israel without end. 

Among the Heathen — for throughout the world 

To me is not unknown what hath been done 

Worthy of memorial — canst thou not remember 445 

Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus? 

For I esteem those names of men so poor. 

Who could do mighty things, and could contemn 

Riches, though offered from the hand of kings. 

And what in me seems wanting, but that I 450 

May also in this poverty as soon 

Accomplish what they did ? perhaps and more. 

Extol not riches then, the toil of fools. 

The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare ; more apt 



124 MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 

To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge, 455 

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. 
What, if with Uke aversion I reject 
Riches and realms ! yet not, for that a crown. 
Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns. 
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights, 460 
To him who wears the regal diadem. 
When on his shoulders each man's burden lies ; 
For therein stands the office of a king. 
His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise, 
That for the public all this weight he bears. 465 

/Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules 
\Passions, desires, and fears, is more a king ; 
Which every wise and virtuous man attains : 
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule 
Cities of men, or headstrong multitudes, 470 

Subject himself to anarchy within. 
Or lawless passions in him, which he serves. 
But to guide nations in the way of truth 
By saving doctrine, and from error lead 

/To know, and knowing, worship God aright, 475 

/ Is yet more kingly : this attracts the soul, 

I Governs the inner man, the nobler part ; 
That other o'er the body only reigns, 
And oft by force, which to a generous mind 
So reigning can be no sincere delight. 480 

Besides, to give a kingdom hath been thought 
Greater and nobler done, and to lay down 
Far more magnanimous, than to assume. 
Riches are needless then, both for themselves. 
And for thy reason why they should be sought, 485 

To gain a sceptre, oftest better missed.' 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 1 25 

All this, it may be truly said, is nothing more than the old 
teaching of Solomon, ' He that ruleth his spirit is better than 
he that taketh a city' (Prov. xvi. 32). There has always been 
truth enough in the world which, if realized in men's hves, 
would soon bring about the millennium. But, unfortunately, 
it has only been born in their brains. 

Great writers owe their power among men, not necessarily 
so much to a wide range of ideas or to the originality of their 
ideas, as to the vitality which they are able to impart to some 
one comprehensive fructifying idea with which, through consti- 
tution of mind, or circumstances, they have become possessed. 
It is only when a man is really possessed with an idea (that 
is, if it does not run away with him), that he can express 
it with a quickening power, and ring all possible changes 
upon it. 

The passages quoted sufficiently show the kind of liberty 
which Milton estimated above all others, and to the advance- 
ment of which he devoted his best powers, for twenty years, 
and those years the best, generally, of a man's life, for intel- 
lectual and creative work, namely, from thirty-two to fifty-two. 
The last eight of those years he worked in total darkness, not 
bating a jot of heart or hope, sustained by the consciousness 
of having lost his eyes * overplied in Liberty's defence ' — ' the 
glorious hberty,' more especially, ' of the children of God,' ' the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,' without which, 
outward liberty he regarded as a temptation and a snare. 

In addition to the absolute merit attaching to his labors in 
the cause of liberty, it must not be forgotten that he turned 
aside with a heroic self-denial, during all those years of his 
manhood's prime, from what he had, from his early years up, 
felt himself dedicated to, and toward fitting himself for the 
accompHshment of which, he had, with an unflagging ardor, 
trained and marshalled all his faculties. 



126 COM us 



COMUS 



A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl 
of Bridgewater, then President of Wales 

Masques, in the reigns of Elizabeth, James L, and Charles L, 
were generally written for the entertainment of royalty and 
nobility. They were, besides, in most cases, presented by 
royal and noble persons. In their setting, they were in strong 
contrast to the public drama of the day, got up, as they were, 
with great magnificence of architecture, scenery, and ^ apparel- 
ing ' (Ben Jonson's word for the apparatus of the scene), and 
frequently at an enormous expense. They were generally offset 
by grotesque and comic antimasques, which were played by 
common actors, dancers, and buffoons, from the public theatres. 
Shakespeare's ^ A Midsummer Night's Dream ' was probably not 
written as a regular drama for the public stage, but as a 
masque, on the occasion of some noble marriage. ' The most 
lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and 
Thisbe ' presented by the * rude mechanicals,' * hard-handed 
men,' in the fifth act, is the antimasque. It offsets the 
Masque in a special way. The Masque makes great demands 
on the imagination in its presentation of the fairy world ; the 
antimasque is absurdly realistic — nothing is left by the *rude 
mechanicals ' to the imagination. 

The Masque of ' Comus ' is the last notable, if not entirely 
the last, composition of the kind in English Uterature, and the 
loftiest and loveliest. It is a glorification of the power of 
purity and chastity over the impure and the unchaste ; and the 
poet no doubt meant it as a reflection upon the license and 
excesses and revelries (of which Comus is a personification) of 
the profligate and extravagant court of the time, imported from 



COMUS 



12/ 

'Celtic and Iberian fields.' The now obvious attitude of the 
composition was perhaps not at all suspected when it was per- 
formed at Ludlow Casde. 

There is nothing in the Masque of ' Comus ' that is even sug- 
gestive of the antimasque of the earlier masques, unless it be 
where the Country Dancers come in before the entrance of the 
Attendant Spirit with the two Brothers and the Lady, who 
catch the dancers at their sport. The Attendant Spirit ad- 
dresses them in the song (vv. 958-965) : 

' Back, shepherds, back ! Enough your play 
Till next sunshine holiday. 
Here be, without duck or nod, 
Other trippings to be trod 
Of hghter toes,' etc. 

The subject of ' Comus ' was too serious to be offset or parodied 
in any way by an antimasque ; and, furthermore, Milton was 
not the man for anything of the kind. His theme excluded all 
humor, even if he had had any to expend upon it. Its seri- 
ousness must have been deepened for him by what he no 
doubt already felt in regard to the Court and the Church, 
that both were corrupt, and that both were leagued in their 
despotic tendencies, or rather in their actual despotic 
characters. 

The traditional story that the two sons of the Earl of Bridge- 
water, the Lord Brackley and Mr. Thomas Egerton, and their 
sister, the Lady Alice Egerton, were lost in Haywood Forest 
on their way to Ludlow Castle from Herefordshire, where they 
had been visiting their relatives, the Egertons, and that the 
Lady Alice was for a time separated from her brothers, they 
having gone to discover the right path, may have had its origin 
in the Masque. This seems more hkely than that the Masque 
had its origin in the story. 



128 COM us 

In the talk of the two Brothers in regard to their lost sister, 
the idea of the Masque is explicitly presented by the elder 
Brother. He had said : 

* My sister is not so defenceless left 
As you imagine ; she has a hidden strength 
Which you remember not.' 

The second Brother repHes : 

* What hidden strength, 
Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that ? ' 

And then the elder Brother gives expression, in a long 
speech, the gem of the Masque (vv, 418-475), to the power of 
chastity and purity over the unchaste and the impure. 

In the service of this idea, the poet started, no doubt, with 
Comus, the personification of unchaste and impure revelry 
(kuj/xo?), and therefrom constructed his plot, in which a pure 
maiden is brought within range of the wiles and temptations of 
the enchanter. And as the daughter of the noble family for 
which the Masque was written was to play the part of the 
tempted maiden, in the presentation of the Masque, the inci- 
dent of her being temporarily and necessarily left alone by her 
brothers in the forest, would be readily suggested to the poet. 
It afforded him, too, an opportunity of paying a high compli- 
ment to the children of the Earl of Bridgewater. 

The traditional story may therefore be safely regarded as 
a figment. 

Henry Lawes, the most prominent music teacher of the 
time, in noble and wealthy families, and with a high reputation 
as a musical composer, furnished the music for the Masque, 
and took the part of the Attendant Spirit, first appearing as 
such, and afterward in the guise of the old and faithful shep- 



COM us 129 

herd Thyrsis. It is not known by whom the parts of Comus 
and Sabrina were taken. 

Lawes had been one of Milton's musical friends from early 
boyhood. 

Milton addressed the following sonnet to him, which was 
prefixed to ' Choice Psalmes ... by Henry and William Lawes, 
brothers, 1648.' In Milton's volume of poems published in 
1645, Lawes is represented as 'Gentleman of the king's 
chapel and one of His Majesty's private music' 



To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs (1646) 

Harry, whose tuneful and well- measured song 
First taught our English music how to span 
Words with just note and accent, not to scan 
With Midas' ears, committing short and long, 
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng. 
With praise enough for envy to look wan ; 
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man. 
That with smooth air could humour best our tongue. 
Thou honourest verse, and verse must lend her wing 
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire. 
That tunest their happiest hnes in hymn or story. 
Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher 
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing. 
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.* 



I 30 COM us 



THE PERSONS 

The Attendant Spirit, afterward in the habit of Thyrsis. 

CoMUS, with his Crew. 

The Lady. 

First Brother. 

Second Brother. 

Sabrina, the Nymph. 

The Chief Persons which presented were : 

The Lord Brackley; 

Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother; 

The Lady Alice Egerton. 



COM us 131 

The First Scene discovers a Wild Wood. 

The Attendant Spirit descends or enters. 

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court 
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes 
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered 
In regions mild of calm and serene air, 
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 5 

Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care, 
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here, 
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being. 
Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives. 
After this mortal change, to her true servants, 10 

Amongst the enthroned Gods on sainted seats. 
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire 
To lay their just hands on that golden key 
That opes the palace of eternity. 

To such my errand is ; and, but for such, 15 

I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds 
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould. 
But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway 
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream. 
Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove, 20 

Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles 
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep ; 
Which he, to grace his tributary gods, 
By course commits to several government, 25 

And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns 
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle, 
The greatest and the best of all the main. 



32 COM us 

He quarters to his blue-haired deities ; 

And all this tract that fronts the falling sun 30 

A noble Peer of mickle trust and power 

Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide 

An old and haughty nation proud in arms : 

Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore, 

Are coming to attend their father's state, 35 

And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way 

Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood, 

The nodding horror of whose shady brows 

Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger; 

And here their tender age might suffer peril, 40 

But that, by quick command from sovran Jove, 

I was despatched for their defence and guard. 

And listen why ; for I will tell you now 

What never yet was heard in tale or song. 

From old or modern bard, in hall or bower. 45 

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape 
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine. 
After the Tuscan mariners transformed. 
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds hsted. 
On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe, 50 

The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup 
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape. 
And downward fell into a grovelling swine ?) 
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks. 
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, 55 

Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son 
Much like his father, but his mother more. 
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named : 
Who, ripe, and frohc of his full-grown age, 
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, 60 

At last betakes him to this ominous wood, 



COM us 133 

And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, 

Excels his mother at her mighty art, 

Offering to every weary traveller 

His orient liquor in a crystal glass, 65 

To quench the drouth of Phoebus ; which as they taste 

(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst). 

Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance. 

The express resemblance of the gods, is changed 

Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70 

Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, 

All other parts remaining as they were. 

And they, so perfect is their misery. 

Not once perceive their foul disfigurement. 

But boast themselves more comely than before, 75 

And all their friends and native home forget. 

To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty. 

Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove 

Chances to pass through this adventurous glade, 

Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star 80 

I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy. 

As now I do. But first I must put off 

These my sky robes, spun out of Iris' woof. 

And take the weeds and likeness of a swain 

That to the service of this house belongs, 85 

Who, with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song, 

Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar. 

And hush the waving woods ; nor of less faith, 

And in this office of his mountain watch 

Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid 90 

Of this occasion. But I hear the tread 

Of hateful steps ; I must be viewless now. 



134 ' COM us 



CoMUS enters, with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in 
the other; with him a rout of fnonsters, headed like sundry 
sorts of wild beasts, but othe^-unse like men and ivojnen, their 
apparel glistering. They come in 7naking a riotous and 
unruly noise, with torches in their hands. 

Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold 
Now the top of heaven doth hold ; 

And the gilded car of day 95 

His glowing axle doth allay 
In the steep Atlantic stream ; 
And the slope sun his upward beam 
Shoots against the dusky pole, 

Pacing toward the other goal 100 

Of his chamber in the east. 
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast, 
Midnight shout and revelry, 
Tipsy dance and jollity. 

Braid your locks with rosy twine, 105 

Dropping odours, dropping wine. 
Rigour now is gone to bed ; 
And Advice with scrupulous head. 
Strict Age, and sour Severity, 

With their grave saws, in slumber lie. no 

We, that are of purer fire, 
Imitate the starry quire, 
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres. 
Lead in swift round the months and years. 
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, 115 

Now to the moon in wavering morrice move ; 
And on the tawny sands and shelves 
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves. 



COM us 135 

By dimpled brook and fountain-brim, 

The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim, 120 

Their merry wakes and pastimes keep ; 

What hath night to do with sleep ? 

Night hath better sweets to prove ; 

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love. 

Come, let us our rites begin, 125 

— 'Tis only daylight that makes sin — 

Which these dun shades will ne'er report. 

Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport. 

Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame 

Of midnight torches burns ! mysterious dame, 130 

That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb 

Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, 

And makes one blot of all the air ! 

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, 

Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend 135 

Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end 

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out ; 

Ere the blabbing eastern scout. 

The nice Morn on the Indian steep. 

From her cabined loop-hole peep, 140 

And to the tell-tale Sun descry 

Our concealed solemnity. 

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground 

In a light fantastic round. 

The Measure. 

Break off, break off! I feel the different pace 145 

Of some chaste footing near about this ground. 
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees ; 
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure 



1 36 COMUS 

For so I can distinguish by mine art) 
Benighted in these woods ! Now to my charms, 150 

And to my wily trains : I shall ere long 
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed 
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl 
My dazzHng spells into the spungy air, 
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, 155 

And give it false presentments, lest the place 
And my quaint habits breed astonishment. 
And put the damsel to suspicious flight ; 
Which must not be, for that's against my course. 
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends, 160 

And well- placed words of glozing courtesy, 
Baited with reasons not unplausible. 
Wind me into the easy-hearted man. 
And hug him into snares. When once her eye 
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust, 165 

I shall appear some harmless villager 
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear. 
But here she comes ; I fairly step aside. 
And hearken, if I may her business hear. 

The Lady ente7's. 

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, 170 
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound 
Of riot and ill-managed merriment, 
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe 
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds. 
When, for their teeming flocks, and granges full, 1 75 

In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, 
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth 
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence 



COM us 137 

Of such late wassailers ; yet, oh ! where else 

Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180 

In the blind mazes of this tangled wood ? 

My brothers, when they saw me wearied out 

With this long way, resolving here to lodge 

Under the spreading favour of these pines, 

Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side 185 

To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit 

As the kind hospitable woods provide. 

They left me then when the gray-hooded Even, 

Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, 

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190 

But where they are, and why they came not back, 

Is now the labour of my thoughts. *Tis likeliest 

They had engaged their wandering steps too far ; 

And envious darkness, ere they could return, 

Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, 195 

Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, 

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars 

That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps 

With everlasting oil to give due light 

To the misled and lonely traveller? 200 

This is the place, as well as I may guess, 

Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth 

Was rife, and perfect in my hstening ear ; 

Yet nought but single darkness do I find. 

What might this be ? A thousand fantasies 205 

Begin to throng into my memory, 

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, 

And airy tongues that syllable men's names 

On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. 

These thoughts may starde well, but not astound 210 

The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended 



138 COM us 

By a strong siding champion, Conscience. 

O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, 

Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, 

And thou unblemished form of Chastity ! 215 

I see ye visibly, and now believe 

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill 

Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, 

Would send a glistering guardian, if need were. 

To keep my Hfe and honour unassailed. ... 220 

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 

Turn forth her silver lining on the night ? 

I did not err : there does a sable cloud 

Turn forth her silver lining on the night. 

And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. 225 

I cannot hallo to my brothers, but 

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest 

I'll venture ; for my new enlivened spirits 

Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off. 

Song. 

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 230 

Within thy airy shell 
By slow Meander's margent green. 
And in the violet-embroidered vale. 

Where the love-lorn nightingale 
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well : 235 

Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair 
That likest thy Narcissus are ? 
Oh, if thou have 
Hid them in some flowery cave, 

Tell me but where, 240 

Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere ! 



COMUS 1 39 

So mayst thou be translated to the skies, 
And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies ! 

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould 
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? 245 

Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 
And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
To testify his hidden residence. 
How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
Of silence, through the empty- vaulted night, 250 

At every fall smoothing the raven down 
Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard 
My mother Circe with the Sirens three, 
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, 

Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, 255 

Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul. 
And lap it in Elysium : Scylla wept. 
And chid her barking waves into attention, 
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause. 
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 260 

And in sweet madness robbed it of itself; 
But such a sacred and home-felt delight, 
Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her. 
And she shall be my queen. — Hail, foreign wonder ! 265 
Whom, certain, these rough shades did never breed. 
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine 
Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song 
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog 
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 270 

Lady. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise 
That is addressed to unattending ears. 
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift 



I40 COM us 

How to regain my severed company, 

Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo 275 

To give me answer from her mossy couch. 

Comus, What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus? 

Lady. Dim darkness and this leavy labyrinth. 

Comus. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides? 

Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf. 280 

Comus. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? 

Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. 

Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady? 

Lady. They were but twain, and purposed quick return. 

Comus. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 285 

Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit ! 

Comus. Imports their loss, beside the present need ? 

Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. 

Comus. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom ? 

Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their unrazored lips. 290 

Comus. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox 
In his loose traces from the furrow came. 
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat. 
I saw them under a green mantling vine, 

That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 295 

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots ; 
Their port was more than human, as they stood. 
I took it for a faery vision 
Of some gay creatures of the element, 

That in the colours of the rainbow live, 300 

And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook. 
And, as I passed, I worshipped. If those you seek, 
It were a journey like the path to Heaven 
To help you find them. 

Lady. Gentle villager. 

What readiest way would bring me to that place? 305 



COM us 141 

Comus. Due west it rises from this shrubby point. 

Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose, 
In such a scant allowance of star-light. 
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art. 
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. 310 

Comus. I know each lane, and every alley green, 
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, 
And every bosky bourn from side to side. 
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood ; 
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged, 315 

Or shroud within these limits, I shall know 
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark 
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, 
I can conduct you. Lady, to a low 

But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 320 

Till further quest. 

Lady. Shepherd, I take thy word. 

And trust thy honest-offered courtesy ; 
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds. 
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls 
And courts of princes, where it first was named, 325 

And yet is most pretended. In a place 
Less warranted than this, or less secure. 
It cannot be, that I should fear to change it. 
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial 
To my proportioned strength ! Shepherd, lead on. 330 

Enter the Two Brothers. 

Eld. Bro. Unmuffle, ye faint stars ; and thou, fair moon, 
That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, 
Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, 
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here 



142 COM us 

In double night of darkness and of shades ; 335 

Or, if your influence be quite dammed up 

With black usurping mists, some gentle taper, 

Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole 

Of some clay habitation, visit us 

With thy long-levelled rule of streaming light, 340 

And thou shalt be our Star of Arcady, 

Or Tyrian Cynosure. 

Sec. Bro. Or, if our eyes 

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear 
The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes. 
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaken stops, 345 

Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock 
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, 
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. 
But, oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister ! 350 

Where may she wander now, whither betake her 
From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles ? 
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now. 
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm 
Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. 355 
What if in wild amazement and affright, 
Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp 
Of savage hunger, or of savage heat ! 

Eld. Bro. Peace, brother : be not over-exquisite 
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils ; 360 

For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown, 
What need a man forestall his date of grief. 
And run to meet what he would most avoid ? 
Or, if they be but false alarms of fear, 
How bitter is such self-delusion ! 365 

I do not think my sister so to seek. 



COMUS 



43 



Or so unprincipled in virtue's book, 

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever, 

As that the single want of light and noise 

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not) 370 

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts. 

And put them into misbecoming plight. 

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would 

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon 

Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self 375 

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude. 

Where, with her best nurse. Contemplation, 

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, 

That, in the various bustle of resort, 

Were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. 380 

He that has light within his own clear breast, 

May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day : 

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 

Benighted walks under the mid-day sun ; 

Himself is his own dungeon. 

Sec. Bro. 'Tis most true 385 

That musing meditation most affects 
The pensive secrecy of desert-cell. 
Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds, 
And sits as safe as in a senate-house ; 
For who would rob a hermit of his weeds, 300 

His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, 
Or do his grey hairs any violence ? 
But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree 
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard 
Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye, 395 

To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit, 
From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. 
You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps 



144 COM US 

Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den, 

And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope 400 

Danger will wink on Opportunity, 

And let a single helpless maiden pass 

Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste. 

Of night or lonehness it recks me not; 

I fear the dread events that dog them both, 405 

Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person 

Of our unowned sister. 

Eld. Bro. I do not, brother. 

Infer as if I thought my sister's state 
Secure without all doubt or controversy ; 
Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear 410 

Does arbitrate the event, my nature is 
That I incHne to hope rather than fear. 
And gladly banish squint suspicion. 
My sister is not so defenceless left 

As you imagine ; she has a hidden strength, 415 

Which you remember not. 

Sec. Bro. What hidden strength. 

Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that? 

Eld. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength. 
Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own. 
'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity ; 420 

She that has that, is clad in complete steel. 
And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen, 
May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths. 
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds ; 
Where, through the sacred rays of chastity, 425 

No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer. 
Will dare to soil her virgin purity. 
Yea, there where very desolation dwells. 
By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, 



COM us 145 

She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 

Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. 

Some say no evil thing that walks by night, 

In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen. 

Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost. 

That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, 435 

No goblin or swart faery of the mine, 

Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. 

Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call 

Antiquity from the old schools of Greece 

To testify the arms of chastity ? 440 

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, 

Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste, 

Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness 

And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought 

The frivolous bolt of Cupid ; gods and men 445 

Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o' the woods. 

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield 

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin. 

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone, 

But rigid looks of chaste austerity, 450 

And noble grace that dashed brute violence 

With sudden adoration and blank awe ? 

So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity 

That, when a soul is found sincerely so, 

A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 455 

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 

And in clear dream and solemn vision 

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear ; 

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants 

Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, 460 

The unpolluted temple of the mind, 

And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 

L 



146 COM us 

Till all be made immortal. But, when lust, 

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, 

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 465 

Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 

The soul grows clotted by contagion, 

Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose 

The divine property of her first being. 

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 470 

Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres. 

Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave, 

As loth to leave the body that it loved. 

And linked itself by carnal sensuality 

To a degenerate and degraded state. 475 

Sec. Bro. How charming is divine Philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose. 
But musical as is Apollo's lute. 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets. 
Where no crude surfeit reigns. 

E/d. Bro. List ! Kst ! I hear 480 

Some far-off hallo break the silent air. 

Sec. Bro. Methought so too ; what should it be ? 

Eld. Bro. For certain, 

Either some one, like us, night-foundered here. 
Or else some neighbour woodman, or, at worst. 
Some roving robber caUing to his fellows. 485 

Sec. Bro. Heaven keep my sister ! Again, again, and near ! 
Best draw, and stand upon our guard. 

Eld. Bro. I'll hallo. 

If he be friendly, he comes well : if not. 
Defence is a good cause, and Heaven be for us ! 



COMUS 



147 



Enter the Attendant Spirit, habited like a shepherd. 

That hallo I should know. What are you ? Speak ! 490 

Come not too near ; you fall on iron stakes else. 

Spir. What voice is that ? my young Lord ? speak again. 

Sec. Bro. O brother, 'tis my father's shepherd, sure. 

Eld. Bro. Thyrsis ! whose artful strains have oft delayed 
The huddling brook to hear his madrigal, 495 

And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale. 
How camest thou here, good swain? hath any ram 
Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost his dam. 
Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook ? 
How couldst thou find this dark sequestered nook? 500 

Spir. O my loved master's heir, and his next joy, 
I came not here on such a trivial toy 
As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth 
Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth 
That doth enrich these downs is worth a thought 505 

To this my errand, and the care it brought. 
But, oh ! my virgin Lady, where is she ? 
How chance she is not in your company? 

Eld. Bro. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame 
Or our neglect, we lost her as we came. 510 

Spir. Ay me unhappy ! then my fears are true. 

Eld. Bro. What fears, good Thyrsis ? Prithee briefly shew. 

Spir. I'll tell ye. 'Tis not vain or fabulous 
(Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance) 
What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly Muse, 515 

Storied of old in high immortal verse. 
Of dire Chimeras and enchanted isles. 
And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell ; 
For such there be, but unbelief is blind. 



148 COM us 

Within the navel of this hideous wood, 520 

Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells. 
Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus, 
Deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries. 
And here to every thirsty wanderer 

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup, 525 

With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison 
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks. 
And the inglorious likeness of a beast 
Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage 
Charactered in the face. This have I learnt 530 

Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts 
That brow this bottom-glade ; whence, night by night, 
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl 
Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey, 
Doing abhorred rites to Hecate 535 

In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers. 
Yet have they many baits and guileful spells 
To inveigle and invite the unwary sense 
Of them that pass unweeting by the way. 
This evening late, by then the chewing flocks 540 

Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb 
Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, 
I sat me down to watch upon a bank 
With ivy canopied, and interwove 

With flaunting honey-suckle, and began, 545 

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy. 
To meditate my rural minstrelsy. 
Till fancy had her fill. But ere a close. 
The wonted roar was up amidst the woods. 
And filled the air with barbarous dissonance ; 550 

At which I ceased, and listened them a while, 
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence 



COM us 149 

Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds 

That draw the Htter of close-curtained Sleep. 

At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound 555 

Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, 

And stole upon the air, that even Silence 

Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might 

Deny her nature, and be never more. 

Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 560 

And took in strains that might create a soul 

Under the ribs of Death. But, oh ! ere long 

Too well I did perceive it was the voice 

Of my most honoured Lady, your dear sister. 

Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and fear ; 565 

And " O poor hapless nightingale," thought I, 

" How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare ! " 

Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste. 

Through paths and turnings often trod by day. 

Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place 570 

Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise 

(For so by certain signs I knew), had met 

Already, ere my best speed could prevent, 

The aidless innocent lady, his wished prey. 

Who gently asked if he had seen such two, 575 

Supposing him some neighbour villager. 

Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guessed 

Ye were the two she meant ; with that I sprung 

Into swift flight, till I had found you here, 

But further know I not. 

Sec. Bro. O night and shades, 580 

How are ye joined with Hell in triple knot 
Against the unarmed weakness of one virgin. 
Alone and helpless ! Is this the confidence 
You gave me, brother? 



150 COM us 

Eld. Bro. Yes, and keep it still ; 

Lean on it safely ; not a period 585 

Shall be unsaid for me. Against the threats 
Of malice or of sorcery, or that power 
Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm : 
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, 
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled; 590 

Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm 
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. 
But evil on itself shall back recoil. 
And mix no more with goodness, when at last. 
Gathered like scum, and settled to itself, 595 

It shall be in eternal restless change 
Self-fed, and self-consumed. If this fail, 
The pillared firmament is rottenness. 
And earth's base built on stubble. But come, let's on ! 
Against the opposing will and arm of Heaven 600 

May never this just sword be lifted up ; 
But for that damned magician, let him be girt 
With all the grisly legions that troop 
Under the sooty flag of Acheron, 

Harpies and Hydras, or all the monstrous forms 605 

'Twixt Africa and Ind, I'll find him out. 
And force him to return his purchase back, 
Or drag him by the curls to a foul death. 
Cursed as his life. 

Spir. Alas ! good venturous youth, 

I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise ; 610 

But here thy sword can do thee little stead. 
Far other arms and other weapons must 
Be those that quell the might of hellish charms. 
He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, 
And crumble all thy sinews. 



COM us I 5 I 

Eld. Bro. Why, prithee, Shepherd, 615 

How durst thou then thyself approach so near 
As to make this relation ? 

Spir. Care and utmost shifts 

How to secure the Lady from surprisal 
Brought to my mind a certain shepherd-lad, 
Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled 620 

In every virtuous plant and healing herb 
That spreads her verdant leaf to the morning ray. 
He loved me well, and oft would beg me sing ; 
Which when I did, he on the tender grass 
Would sit, and hearken e'en to ecstasy, 625 

And in requital ope his leathern scrip. 
And show me simples of a thousand names, 
Telling their strange and vigorous faculties. 
Amongst the rest a small unsightly root. 
But of divine effect, he culled me out. 630 

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it. 
But in another country, as he said, 
Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil. 
Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain 
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ; 635 

And yet more med'cinal is it than that Moly 
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave. 
He called it Hsemony, and gave it me. 
And bade me keep it as of sovereign use 
'Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast or damp, 640 

Or ghastly Furies' apparition. 
I pursed it up, but little reckoning made, 
Till now that this" extremity compelled. 
But now I find it true ; for by this means 
I knew the foul enchanter, though disguised, 645 

Entered the very hme- twigs of his spells, 



152 COMUS 

And yet came off. If you have this about you 

(As I will give you when we go), you may 

Boldly assault the necromancer's hall ; 

Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood 650 

And brandished blade rush on him, break his glass, 

And shed the luscious Hquor on the ground ; 

But seize his wand. Though he and his curst crew 

Fierce sign of batde make, and menace high. 

Or, Hke the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke, 655 

Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink. 

Eld. Bro. Thyrsis, lead on apace ; I'll follow thee ; 
And some good angel bear a shield before us ! 



The Scene changes to a stately palace, set out with all manner 
of deliciousness : soft music, tables spread with all dainties. 
CoMUS appears with his rabble, and the Lady set in an 
e?ichanted chair, to whom he offers his glass, which she puts 
by, and goes about to rise. 

Comus. Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand. 
Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster, 660 

And you a statue, or as Daphne was, 
Root-bound, that fled Apollo. 

Lady. Fool, do not boast. 

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind 
With all thy charms, although this corporal rind 
Thou hast immanacled, while Heaven sees good. 665 

Comus. Why are you vext, Lady? why do you frown? 
Here dwell no frowns, nor anger ; from these gates 
Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures 
That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts, 
When the fresh blood grows Uvely, and returns 670 



COM us 153 

Brisk as the April buds in primrose season. 

And first behold this cordial julep here, 

That flames and dances in his crystal bounds, 

With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed. 

Not that Nepenthes, which the wife of Thone 675 

In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena, 

Is of such power to stir up joy as this, 

To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst. 

Why should you be so cruel to yourself. 

And to those dainty limbs which Nature lent 680 

For gentle usage and soft dehcacy ? 

But you invert the covenants of her trust, 

And harshly deal, like an ill borrower. 

With that which you received on other terms, 

Scorning the unexempt condition 685 

By which all mortal frailty must subsist. 

Refreshment after toil, ease after pain. 

That have been tired all day without repast. 

And timely rest have wanted. But, fair virgin, 

This will restore all soon. 

Lady. 'Twill not, false traitor ! 690 

'Twill not restore the truth and honesty 
That thou hast banished from thy tongue with Hes. 
Was this the cottage and the safe abode 
Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these. 
These oughly-headed monsters? Mercy guard me ! 695 
Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver ! 
Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence 
With vizored falsehood and base forgery ? 
And wouldst thou seek again to trap me here 
With liquorish baits, fit to ensnare a brute? 700 

Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, 
I would not taste thy treasonous offer. None 



1 54 COM us 

But such as are good men can give good things ; 

And that which is not good is not dehcious 

To a well-governed and wise appetite. 705 

Cofntis, O foolishness of men ! that lend their ears 
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur, 
And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub, 
Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence ! 

Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth 710 

With such a full and unwithdrawing hand, 
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks, 
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable. 
But all to please and sate the curious taste ? 
And set to work millions of spinning worms, 715 

That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk, 
To deck her sons ; and that no corner might 
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins 
She hutched the all-worshiped ore and precious gems, 
To store her children with. If all the world 720 

Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse. 
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze, 
The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised, 
Not half his riches known, and yet despised ; 
And we should serve him as a grudging master, 725 

As a penurious niggard of his wealth. 
And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons, 
Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight, 
And strangled with her waste fertiUty ; 

The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with 
plumes, 730 

The herds would over-multitude their lords ; 
The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds 
Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep. 
And so bestud with stars, that they below 



coMUS 1 5 5 

Would grow inured to light, and come at last 735 

To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. 

List, Lady ; be not coy, and be not cozened 

With that same vaunted name, Virginity. 

Beauty is Nature's coin ; must not be hoarded, 

But must be current ; and the good thereof 740 

Consists in mutual and partaken bhss, 

Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. 

If you let slip time, like a neglected rose 

It withers on the stalk with languished head. 

Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown 745 

In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, 

AVhere most may wonder at the workmanship. 

It is for homely features to keep home ; 

They had their name thence ; coarse complexions 

And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 

The sampler, and to .tease the huswife's wool. 

What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that. 

Love-darting eyes, or tresses hke the morn? 

There was another meaning in these gifts ; 

Think what, and be advised ; you are but young yet. 755 

Lady. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips 
In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler 
Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes, 
Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb. 
I hate when vice can bolt her arguments, 760 

And virtue has no tongue to check her pride. 
Impostor ! do not charge most innocent Nature, 
As if she would her children should be riotous 
With her abundance. She, good cateress, 
Means her provision only to the good, 765 

That live according to her sober laws. 
And holy dictate of spare Temperance. 



156 COMUS 

If every just man, that now pines with want, 

Had but a moderate and beseeming share 

Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury 770 

Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, 

Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed 

In unsuperfluous even proportion. 

And she no whit encumbered with her store ; 

And then the Giver would be better thanked, 775 

His praise due paid : for swinish Gluttony 

Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast. 

But with besotted base ingratitude 

Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on ? 

Or have I said enow? To him that dares 780 

Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words 

Against the sun-clad power of Chastity, 

Fain would I something say ; — yet to what end? 

Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend 

The sublime notion and high mystery 785 

That must be uttered to unfold the sage 

And serious doctrine of Virginity ; 

And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know 

More happiness than this thy present lot. 

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, 790 

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence ; 

Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced. 

Yet should I try, the uncontrolled worth 

Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits 

To such a flame of sacred vehemence, 795 

That dumb things would be moved to sympathize, 

And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake, 

Till all thy magic structures, reared so high, 

Were shattered into heaps o'er thy false head. 

Coffius. She fables not. I feel that I do fear 800 



COM us 157 

Her words set off by some superior power ; 

And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew 

Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove 

Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus 

To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble, 805 

And try her yet more strongly. — Come, no more ! 

This is mere moral babble, and direct 

Against the canon-laws of our foundation. 

I must not suffer this ; yet 'tis but the lees 

And setthngs of a melancholy blood. 810 

But this will cure all straight ; one sip of this 

Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight 

Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste. 



The Brothers rush in with swords drawjt, wrest his glass out 
of his hand, arid break it against the groiuid ; his rout make 
sign of resistance^ but are all driven in. The Attendant 
Spirit comes in. 

Spir. What ! have you let the false enchanter scape? 
Oh, ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand, 815 

And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the Lady that sits here 
In stony fetters fixed, and motionless. 

Yet stay : be not disturbed ; now I bethink me, 820 

Some other means I have which may be used, 
Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt, 
The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains. 

There is a gentle nymph not far from hence. 
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream : 825 
Sabrina is her name : a virgin pure ; 



158 COM us 

Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, 

That had the sceptre from his father Brute. 

She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit 

Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, 830 

Commended her fair innocence to the flood, 

That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course. 

The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played, 

Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in. 

Bearing her straight to aged Nereus' hall ; 835 

Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. 

And gave her to his daughters to imbathe 

In nectared lavers strewed with asphodil, 

And through the porch and inlet of each sense 

Dropt in ambrosial oils, till she revived, 840 

And underwent a quick immortal change. 

Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains 

Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve 

Visits the herds along the twilight meadows. 

Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs 845 

That the shrewd meddhng elf delights to make, 

Which she with precious vialed liquors heals ; 

For which the shepherds at their festivals 

Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays. 

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 850 

Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. 

And, as the old swain said, she can unlock 

The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell. 

If she be right invoked in warbled song ; 

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift 855 

To aid a virgin, such as was herself. 

In hard-besetting need. This will I try, 

And add the power of some adjuring verse. 



COM us 159 

Song. 
Sabrina fair, 

Listen where thou art sitting 860 

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, 

In twisted braids of lihes knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair ; 
Listen for dear honour's sake. 
Goddess of the silver lake, 865 

Listen and save ! 

Listen and appear to us. 
In name of great Oceanus. 
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, 
And Tethy's grave majestic pace ; 870 

By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, 
And the Carpathian wizard's hook ; 
By scaly Triton's winding shell, 
And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell ; 
By Leucothea's lovely hands, 875 

And her son that rules the strands ; 
By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, 
And the songs of Sirens sweet ; 
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb. 
And fair Ligea's golden comb, 880 

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks. 
Sleeking her soft alluring locks ; 
By all the nymphs that nightly dance 
Upon thy streams with wily glance ; 
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head 885 

From thy coral-paven bed, 
And bridle in thy headlong wave, 
Till thou our summons answered have. 
Listen and save ! 



[6o COM us 

Sabrina rises, attended by water-fiymphs^ and sings. 

By the rushy-fringed bank, 890 

Where grows the willow and the osier dank, 

My sliding chariot stays, 
Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen 
Of turkis blue, and emerald green, 

That in the channel strays ; 895 

Whilst, from off the waters fleet, 
Thus I set my printless feet 
O'er the cowsHp's velvet head, 

That bends not as I tread. 
Gentle swain, at thy request 900 

I am here ! 

Spir. Goddess dear, 
We implore thy powerful hand 
To undo the charmed band 

Of true virgin here distrest 905 

Through the force and through the wile 
Of unblest enchanter vile. 

Sabr. Shepherd, 'tis my office blest 
To help ensnared chastity. 

Brightest Lady, look on me. 910 

Thus I sprinkle on thy breast 
Drops that from my fountain pure 
I have kept of precious cure ; 
Thrice upon thy finger's tip. 

Thrice upon thy rubied lip ; 915 

Next this marble venomed seat. 
Smeared with gums of glutinous heat, 
I touch with chaste palms moist and cold. 
Now the spell hath lost his hold ; 
And I must haste ere morning hour 920 

To wait in Amphitrite's bower. 



COM us l6l 

Sabrina descends, a?td the Lady rises out of her seat. 

Spir, Virgin, daughter of Locrine, 
Sprung of old Anchises' line, 
May thy brimmed waves for this 

Their full tribute never miss 925 

From a thousand petty rills, 
That tumble down the snowy hills; 
Summer drouth, or singed air 
Never scorch thy tresses fair, 

Nor wet October's torrent flood 930 

Thy molten crystal fill with mud ; 
May thy billows roll ashore 
The beryl, and the golden ore ; 
May thy lofty head be crowned 

With many a tower and terrace round, 935 

And here and there thy banks upon 
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. 

Come, Lady ; while Heaven lends us grace, 
Let us fly this cursed place, 

Lest the sorcerer us entice 94^ 

With some other new device. 
Not a waste or needless sound, 
TiU we come to holier ground. 
I shall be your faithful guide 

Through this gloomy covert wide ; 945 

And not many furlongs thence 
Is your Father's residence. 
Where this night are met in state 
Many a friend to gratulate 

His wished presence, and beside 950 

AU the swains that there abide 
With jigs, and rural dance resort. 



1 62 COM us 

We shall catch them at their sport, 

And our sudden coming there 

Will double all their mirth and cheer. 955 

Come, let us haste ; the stars grow high. 

But Night sits monarch yet in the mid-sky. 

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the Presidents 
castle; then come in country dancers; after them the Attend- 
ant Spirit, with the Two Brothers and the Lady. 

Song. 

Spir. Back, shepherds, back ! enough your play, 
Till next sunshine holiday. 

Here be, without duck or nod, 960 

Other trippings to be trod 
Of lighter toes, and such court-guise 
As Mercury did first devise 
With the mincing Dryades 
On the lawns and on the leas. 965 



This secojid Song presents them to their Father and Mother. 

Noble Lord, and Lady bright, 

I have brought ye new delight. 

Here behold so goodly grown 

Three fair branches of your own. 

Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 

Their faith, their patience, and their truth, 

And sent them here through hard assays 

With a crown of deathless praise, 

To triumph in victorious dance 

O'er sensual folly and intemperance. 975 



COMUS 



163 



The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguizes. 

Spir. To the ocean now I fly, 
And those happy climes that lie 
Where day never shuts his eye, 
Up in the broad fields of the sky. 
There I suck the liquid air, ^go 

All amidst the gardens fair 
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three 
That sing about the golden tree. 
Along the crisped shades and bowers 
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring ; 985 

The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours 
Thither all their bounties bring. 
There eternal Summer dwells. 
And west-winds with musky wing 
About the cedarn alleys fling qqo 

Nard and cassia's balmy smells. 
Iris there with humid bow 
Waters the odorous banks, that blow 
Flowers of more mingled hue 

Than her purfled scarf can shew, 995 

And drenches with Elysian dew 
(List, mortals, if your ears be true) 
Beds of hyacinth and roses. 
Where young Adonis oft reposes, 
Waxing well of his deep wound, 1000 

In slumber soft, and on the ground 
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. 
But far above, in spangled sheen. 
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced 
Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced 1005 

After her wandering labours long, 



1 64 COM us 

Till free consent the gods among 

Make her his eternal bride, 

And from her fair unspotted side 

Two blissful twins are to be born, loio 

Youth and Joy ; so Jove hath sworn. 

But now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly, or I can run 
Quickly to the green earth's end, 
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1015 
And from thence can soar as soon 
To the corners of the moon. 

Mortals, that would follow me, 
Love Virtue ; she alone is free. 
She can teach ye how to cHmb 1020 

Higher than the sphery chime ; 
Or, if Virtue feeble were. 
Heaven itself would stoop to her. 



LYCIDAS 165 



LYCIDAS 



The poem of Lycidas was occasioned by the death of 
Milton's College friend, Edward King, son of Sir John King, 
Knight, Privy Councillor for Ireland, and Secretary to the 
Irish Government. King was admitted on the 9th of June, 1626, 
at the age of fourteen, to Christ's College, Cambridge, about 
sixteen months after Milton's admission. Milton left College 
after receiving his Master's degree in July, 1632 ; so that at 
this date, he and King had been at College together about 
six years. King was made a Fellow of his College in June^ 
1630, in conformity with a royal mandate, secured, it may 
have been, through Sir John's influence at court, due to his 
official position. He had also been Privy Councillor for the 
Kingdom of Ireland, to their majesties, Elizabeth and 
James. 

Milton's claim, as a scholar, to the Fellowship must have 
been far superior to King's, and he was ahead of him in his 
College course. But Fellowships went a good deal by politi- 
cal and ecclesiastical influence ; and, furthermore, it is not 
likely that Milton would have accepted a Fellowship at the 
time, if it had been offered to him, involving, as it did, the 
taking of orders, against which Milton's mind must already 
at that time have been decided, though he had been sent to 
the University with the Church in view. 

King received his Master's degree in July, 1633, and con- 
tinued his connection with the College as fellow, tutor, and, 
in 1634-35, as ' praelector.' He was noted for his amiability 
and purity of character and genuine piety ; and Milton was 
probably drawn to him more by these quaUties than by his 



1 66 LYCIDAS 

intellectual and poetical abilities. He left numerous Latin 
compositions (published in various collections), which, accord- 
ing to Masson, have no remarkable poetical merit. But their 
subjects, all, with one exception, royal occasions, did not 
afford opportunities for the display of poetic genius, — the 
birth of the Princess Mary, the king's recovery from the small- 
pox, the king's safe return from Scotland, July, 1633, com- 
mendatory iambics prefixed to a Latin comedy, Senile Odium, 
performed in Queen's College, the birth of Prince James, Duke 
of York, the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, and the birth of 
the Princess Anne. 

King was preparing himself for the Churcli ; and it may be 
inferred from Milton's poem that he regarded him as worthy, 
in an eminent degree, to discharge the responsible duties of 
a Christian minister. 

In the Long Vacation of 1637, King set out to visit his family 
and friends in Ireland. He embarked at Chester for Dublin. 
When but a short distance from the Welsh coast, the weather 
being at the time, as appears from Milton's poem, perfectly 
calm, the ship (it is alluded to as a ^ fatal and perfidious 
bark ') struck on a rock and soon went down, only a few of 
the passengers being rescued. 

A volume of ' In Memoriam ' poems, by members of different 
Colleges of the University, and others, twenty in Latin, three 
in Greek, and thirteen in English, was printed at the Univer- 
sity Press and published early in the following year (1638). 
The Latin and Greek part of the volume bore the title, ' Justa 
Edovardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris et 
/xi/etas x<^ptv. Si recte calciilum ponas, iibique naufragiicm est. 
Petron. Arb. Cantabrigiae, apud Thomam Buck et Rogerum 
Daniel, celeberrimae Academise typographos. 1638.' 

The English part bore the title, ' Obsequies to the memorie 
of Mr. Edward King, Anno Dom. 1638. Printed by Th. 



LYCIDAS 167 

Buck and R. Daniel, printers to the Vniversitie of Cambridge, 
1638.' 

Prefixed to the volume is a brief Latin inscriptive panegyric, 
in which King's last moments are described : ' hand procul a 
littore Britannico, navi in scopulum allisa et rimis ex ictu 
fatiscente, dum alii vectores vitae mortahs frustra satagerent, 
immortalem anhelans in genu provolutus oransque una cum 
navigio ab aquis absorptus, animam deo reddidit iiii eid. 
Sextilis anno Salutis MDCXXXVII, ^tatis xxv.' 

The extracts given by Masson, from the English poems, 
have no poetic merit, nor merit of any kind, being clumsy 
tissues of far-fetched, cold-blooded conceits, of which the fol- 
lowing, from three of the contributions, are not unfair speci- 
mens. There could not have been an excess of poetical 
ability in the University at the time. 

' I am no poet here ; my pen's the spout 
Where the rain-water of my eyes runs out. 
In pity of that name whose fate we see 
Thus copied out in grief's Hydrographie.' 

' Since first the waters gave 
A blessing to him which the soul did save. 
They loved the holy body still too much. 
And would regain some virtue from a touch.' 

' Weep forth your tears, then ; pour out all your tide ; 
All waters are pernicious since King died.' 

The writers must all have sat at the feet and learned of 
John Donne, whose coldly ingenious conceits had for some 
time been passing for poetry. 

Milton might well lament, in the person of his bereaved 
shepherd, the sad decHne of poetry, since the Elizabethan days. 



1 68 LYCIDAS 

' Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 
Were it not better done, as others use. 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? ' 

Milton's poem comes last in the collection, without title, 
and with simply the initials I. M. appended. It presents a 
strange contrast to the worthless productions which precede 
it. Unless the other writers' poetic appreciation was very 
far in advance of their poetic power, as exhibited in their 
several contributions, they could have had but little appre- 
ciation of the merits of Milton's poem. There is no reason 
for supposing that King's death caused Milton a deep per- 
sonal grief, such as that which was caused by the death of 
Charles Diodati, and to which the Epitaphium Damonis 
bears testimony. 

Milton had no doubt cherished for King a deep regard, 
as one exceptionally fitted, by his purity of character, and 
sincere piety, for the sacred office. And the presentation, 
in his elegiac ode, of these qualities, afforded an occasion 
for giving an expression to what was evidently a greater grief 
to him than the death of his College friend, namely, the 
condition of the Church, which he regarded as corrupt in 
itself, and as in league with the despotic tendencies of the 
political power. All the ' higher strains ' of the ode are in- 
spired by a holy indignation toward the time-serving eccle- 
siastics, whose unworthiness, as shepherds of Christ's flock, 
he sets forth in the burning denunciations attributed to St. 
Peter, as the type of true episcopal power, — denunciations 
which are prophetic of those he is destined to pronounce in 
a few years, in his polemic prose works, against the more 



LYCIDAS 169 

developed ecclesiastical and political abuses of the time, as 
one specially commissioned by God, so to do, in the words 
delivered to the prophet : ' Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy 
voice like a trumpet, and declare unto my people their 
transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.' 

When the poem was republished with the author's full 
name, in 1645, it had the following heading: 'In this 
Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately 
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637 ; 
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.' 

This heading would, no doubt, have caused the rejection 
of the poem by the Cambridge authorities. Milton's 
hostility to the hierarchy of England was little suspected 
then : he was no doubt regarded as a loyal and dutiful son 
of his Alma Afafer, and, besides, it is not likely that the 
several contributions to the King Memorial were looked into 
very closely by the Committee of Examination. 

The death of the Shepherd Lycidas is made to image 
forth the death of a pure priesthood. It is possible that 
Milton may have seen an etymological significance in the 
name Lycidas (which the philology of the present day 
would not admit) and which caused him to adopt the name 
as bearing upon the ecclesiastical import of the poem. The 
name for him may have signified a wolf-seer, to look out 
for the wolf being one of the most important duties of 
the shepherd who has the care of the sheep and of the 
spiritual shepherd or pastor who watches over Christ's 
flock. 

' The pilot of the GaHlean lake,' St. Peter, 'the type and head 
of true episcopal power,' is introduced among the mourners of 
the death of King, denouncing the lewd hirelings of the priest- 
hood of the time. 



I/O LYC/DAS 

* How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake, 
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 
Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 
That to the faithful herd man's art belongs ! 
What recks it them ? What need they? They are sped ; 
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; 
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. 
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; 
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 
But that two-handed engine at the door 
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.' 

The two last verses some commentators have explained as a 
prophecy of the execution of Archbishop Laud, which took 
place on the loth of January, 1644, six years after the publica- 
tion of 'Lycidas.' Warton thus paraphrases the lines : ' But there 
will soon be an end of all these evils ; the axe is at hand, to 
take off the head of him who has been the great abettor of 
these corruptions of the gospel. This will be done by one 
stroke.' 

If this is the meaning of the passage, it was certainly a very 
remarkable prophecy, when it was written, for the king and the 
archbishop were then at the height of their power, and there 
was little or nothing to indicate its overthrow. 

The passage admits of a more probable explanation. The 



LYCIDAS 171 

two-handed engine, the epithet 'two-handed' meaning that its 
length and weight required it to be grasped with both hands, 
refers to the sword of St. Michael, the guardian and protector 
of the Church. In the 6th Book of the ' Paradise Lost ' (vv. 250 
-253) it is said of the sword of Michael that it 

' Smote and felled 
Squadrons at once ; with huge two-handed sway 
Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down 
Wide-wasting. ' 

The poet in this passage therefore means to say that St. 
Michael's sword is to smite off the head of Satan, who, at the 
door of Christ's fold, is, * with privy paw/ daily devouring the 
hungry sheep. 

In a sublime invocation to the Son of God, at the conclusion 
of the fourth section of * Animadversions upon the Remon- 
strant's Defence against Smectymnuus,' Milton says : ' As thou 
didst dignify our fathers' days with many revelations above all 
the foregoing ages, since thou tookest the flesh, so thou canst 
vouchsafe to us (though unworthy) as large a portion of thy 
spirit as thou pleasest ; for who shall prejudice thy all-govern- 
ing will ? Seeing the power of thy grace is not passed away 
with the primitive times, as fond and faithless men imagine, but 
thy kingdom is now at hand, and thou standing at the door. 
Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the 
kings of the earth ! put on the visible robes of thy imperial 
majesty, take up that unhmited sceptre which thy Almighty 
Father hath bequeathed thee ; for now the voice of thy bride 
calls thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.' 

The view taken is strengthened by another disputed passage 
of the poem, a few verses farther on. The poet is addressing 
his drowned friend, whose body he imagines to be tossed about 
by the waves (vv. 154-163) : 



1 72 L YCIDAS 

' Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled ; 
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 
Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world ; 
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. 
Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth.' 

By ' the fable of Bellerus old,' is meant St. Michael's Mount 
at the Land's End in Cornwall, anciently named Bellerium, 
from Bellerus, a Cornish giant, where the Vision of St. Michael 
was, by the old fable, represented to sit, looking toward far 
Namancos and the hold of Spanish Bayona. 

Much of the deeper meaning of the poem centres in the 
three last verses of the passage quoted : 

' Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold, 
Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth.' 

The annotators say nothing, so far as I know, about the appli- 
cation of the great Vision of the guarded mount to the ecclesi- 
astical meaning of the poem. The meaning I take to be this : 
in making the x\rchangel Michael, the guardian and defender of 
the Church of Christ, look toward Namancos and Bayona's 
hold, i.e. toward Spain, the great stronghold, at the time, of 
Papacy, and which, in the reign of Elizabeth, had threatened 
England with invasion and with the imposition of the Roman 
Catholic religion, the poet would evidently imply the Arch- 
angel's watchfulness over the Church against foreign foes. 
But the danger is not from without (this I take to be the idea 



LYCIDAS 173 

shadowed forth), the danger is not from without — it Ues 
within the Church. Milton, or rather 'Milton transformed in 
his imagination, for the time, into a poetic shepherd,' therefore 
says : 

* Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth.' 

Lycidas, who is made to represent, allegorically, the good 
shepherd that careth for the sheep and looketh out for the 
wolf, is dead ; and the lewd hireUngs who, for their bellies' 
sake, have crept into the fold, and to whom the hungry sheep 
look up and are not fed, have themselves become grim wolves, 
and with privy paw seize upon and devour the flock. 

' Lycidas ' was the last of Milton's poems produced during 
his residence under his father's roof at Horton, in Bucking- 
hamshire. He set out soon after on his continental tour. 
Perhaps the '■ fresh woods and pastures new,' in the last verse 
of the poem, refers to this contemplated tour. On his return 
to his native land, he had to bid farewell, a long farewell, to 
the loved haunts of the Muses, and gird himself to fight the 
battle of civil and religious liberty. 

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more. 

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 

And with forced fingers rude 

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5 

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 

Compels me to disturb your season due ; 

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 

Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew 10 

Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme. 

He must not float upon his watery bier 



174 



Z YCIDAS 

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well 15 

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ; 
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse — 
So may some gentle Muse 

With lucky words favour 7tiy destined urn, 20 

And as he passes turn, 
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud — 
For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill ; 
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared 25 

Under the opening eyehds of the Morn, 
We drove a-field, and both together heard 
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn. 
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. 
Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, 30 

Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 
Tempered to the oaten flute ; 
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel 
From the glad sound would not be absent long ; 35 

And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. 

But, oh ! the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
Now thou art gone and never must return ! 
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves 
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 40 

And all their echoes, mourn. 
The willows, and the hazel copses green. 
Shall now no more be seen 
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
As kiUing as the canker to the rose, 45 



LYCIDAS 



175 



Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, 
When first the white-thorn blows; 
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 50 

Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? 
For neither were ye playing on the steep 
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie. 
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high. 

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. 55 

Ay me ! I fondly dream 

* Had ye been there,' ... for what could that have done ? 
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore. 

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, 

Whom universal nature did lament, 60 

When, by the rout that made the hideous roar. 

His gory visage down the stream was sent, 

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? 

Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care 

To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, 65 

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 

Were it not better done, as others use, 

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade. 

Or with the tangles of Nesera's hair? 

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70 

(That last infirmity of noble mind) 

To scorn delights and live laborious days ; 

But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 

And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 75 

And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,' 

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : 

* Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 



I J 6 L YCIDAS 

Nor in the glistering foil 

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 

As he pronounces lastly on each deed. 

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.' 

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, 

Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, 

That strain I heard was of a higher mood. 

But now my oat proceeds. 

And hstens to the Herald of the Sea, 

That came in Neptune's plea. 

He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds. 

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain ? 

And questioned every gust of rugged wings 

That blows from off each beaked promontory. 

They knew not of his story ; 

And sage Hippotades their answer brings. 

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed : 

The air was calm, and on the level brine 

Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. 

It was that fatal and perfidious bark. 

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, 

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 

Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, 
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. 
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. 
^ Ah ! who has reft,' quoth he, ^ my dearest pledge?' 
Last came, and last did go, 
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake ; 
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). 



L YCIDAS 1 7^ 

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake : 

* How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 

Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake, 

Creep, and intrude, and chmb into the fold ! 115 

Of other care they little reckoning make 

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 

And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 

Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least 120 

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! 

What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; 

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; 

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 

But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw. 

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; 

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 

Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 

But that two-handed engine at the door 130 

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.' 

Return, Alpheus ; the dread voice is past 
That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 135 

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. 
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks. 
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes. 
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, 140 

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, 
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. 
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet. 



178 LYCIDAS 

The glowing violet, 145 

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed. 

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 150 

To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies. 

For so, to interpose a little ease. 

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. 

Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; 155 

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 

Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ; 

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 

Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 

Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold : 

Look homeward. Angel, now, and melt with ruth : 

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. 

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 165 
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead. 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed. 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head. 
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 1 70 

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. 
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. 
Where, other groves and other streams along. 
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 175 

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song. 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 



L YCIDAS 



179 



There entertain him all the Saints above, 

In solemn troops, and sweet societies, 

That sing, and singing in their glory move, 180 

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. 

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; 

Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore. 

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 

To all that wander in that perilous flood. 185 

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills. 
While the still morn went out with sandals grey : 
He touched the tender stops of various quills, 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay : 
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190 

And now was dropt into the western bay. 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue ; 
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 

A DRAMATIC POEM 
THE AUTHOR 

JOHN MILTON 

Aristot. Poet. Cap. 6. 

TpaywSia /xt/XT^crts Trpa^ewg (TTrovSata?, etc. 

Tragoedia est imitatio actionis seriae, etc., per miseri- 

cordiam et nietum perficiens talium affectuum 

lustrationem. 



S A A/SON AGONISTES 1 83 

SAMSON AGONISTES 

* The intensest utterance of the most intense of English Poets* 

In his ' Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty/ 
Milton makes the following remarkable allegorical application 
of the story of Samson to a king and his prelates. It is con- 
tained in ' The Conclusion. The Mischief that Prelaty does to 
the State ' : 

' I shall shew briefly, ere I conclude, that the prelates, as they 
are to the subjects a calamity, so are they the greatest under- 
miners and betrayers of the monarch, to whom they seem to 
be most favourable. I cannot better liken the state and per- 
son of a king than to that mighty Nazarite Samson ; who 
being disciplined from his birth in the precepts and the prac- 
tice of temperance and sobriety, without the strong drink of 
injurious and excessive desires, grows up to a noble strength 
and perfection with those his illustrious and sunny locks, the 
laws, waving and curling about his godlike shoulders. And 
while he keeps them about him undiminished and unshorn, he 
may with the jawbone of an ass, that is, with the word of his 
meanest officer, suppress and put to confusion thousands of 
those that rise against his just power. But laying down his 
head among the strumpet flatteries of prelates, while he sleeps 
and thinks no harm, they wickedly shaving oft" all those bright 
and weighty tresses of his law, and just prerogatives, which were 
his ornament and strength, deliver him over to indirect and 
violent counsels, which, as those Philistines, put out the fair 
and far-sighted eyes of his natural discerning, and make him 
grind in the prison house of their sinister ends and practices 
upon him ; till he, knowing this prelatical razor to have bereft 
him of his wonted might, nourish again his puissant hair, the 



1 84 SAMSOAT AGONISTES 

golden beams of law and right ; and they, sternly shook, thun- 
der with ruin upon the heads of those his evil counsellors, but 
not without great affliction to himself. This is the sum of their 
loyal service to kings ; yet these are the men that still cry. The 
king, the king, the Lord's anointed ! We grant it ; and won- 
der how they came to light upon anything so true ; and wonder 
more, if kings be the Lord's anointed, how they dare thus oil 
over and besmear so holy an unction with the corrupt and 
putrid ointment of their base flatteries ; which, while they 
smooth the skin, strike inward and envenom the lifeblood. 
What fidelity kings can expect from prelates, both examples 
past, and our present experience of their doings at this day, 
whereon is grounded all that hath been said, may suffice to in- 
form us. And if they be such clippers of regal power, and 
shavers of the laws, how they stand affected to the lawgiving 
parliament, yourselves, worthy peers and commons, can best 
testify ; the current of whose glorious and immortal actions hath 
been only opposed by the obscure and pernicious designs of the 
prelates, until their insolence broke out to such a bold affront, 
as hath justly immured their haughty looks within strong walls.' 

'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty' 
was published in 1641, nearly eight years before Charles L was 
beheaded, and just thirty years before the publication of ' Samson 
Agonistes.' He little dreamed that the reigning king would, in 
less than eight years, be put to death, and that he should play 
such a role in the subsequent state of things, should have such 
experiences and such disappointments and sorrows as would make 
the fortunes of Samson the prototype of a great final creation 
embodying allegorically his own strangely similar fortunes. 

In Milton's MS. jottings of subjects for a tragedy or an 
epic poem, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, made 
in 1640 and some time following, and occupying seven pages of 
folio-sized paper, is included (No. 19 of the hst of Old Testa- 



SAMSON AGONISTES 1 85 

ment subjects) ' Samson Pursophorus or Hybristes ' \i.e. Sam- 
son the Firebrand-bringer or Violent, as Masson explains], 'or 
Samson Marrying, or Ramath-Lechi : Judges xv.' 

Nothing, of course, could have been more remote from Mil- 
ton's mind than that thirty years after this jotting, his swan- 
song would be given to the world, in which Samson, bhnd and 
among the Philistines, would allegorically reflect his own con- 
dition, in the last years of his life. 

/ The parallelisms in the fortunes of Samson and Milton have 
been noticed by almost every editor and every critic of the 
' Samson Agonistes.' They are too obvious to escape the notice 
of the most careless reader who knows anything of the hfe of 
Milton. Samson is Milton in the polemic and in the post-Res- 
toration period of his life. In all Hterature there is not a nobler, 
more exalting and pathetic egotism, than the 'Samson Agonistes ' 
exhibits — an egotism for which every lover of the great poet 
must be abundantly thankful. ' How very much,' Walter 
Savage Landor justly remarks, 'would literature have lost, if 
this marvellously great and admirable man had omitted the 
various references to himself and his contemporaries ! ' 

Of the numerous autobiographical passages in the ' Samson 
Agonistes,' which editors have noted, those most distinctly so 
are the following: vv. 40, 41; 67-109; 191-193; 219-226; 
241-255; 268-276; 563-572; 590-598; 695-702; 760, 761; 
1025-1060; 1418-1422; 1461-1471 ; 1687-1707. 

These passages show that the allegorical significance of the 
' Samson Agonistes ' bears not only upon Milton's individual 
life and experiences, but also upon the backshding of the Eng- 
lish people, in their restoration of monarchy. ^ The misgivings 
to which Milton gave expression in his ' Ready and easy way 
to establish a free commonwealth, and the excellence thereof, 
compared with the inconveniences and dangers of readmitting 
kingship in this nation,' were realized in less than three months 



1 86 SAMSOJV Agonistes 

after its publication late in February or early in March, 1660. 
Charles II. entered London May 29, 1660. These misgivings 
are expressed, or, at least, implied, in the following passage of 
* The ready and easy way.' The involved construction of the 
language in this pamphlet shows that it must have been very 
hastily dictated by the blind poet : 

' After our Hberty and religion thus prosperously fought for, 
gained, and many years possessed, except in those unhappy 
interruptions, which God hath removed ; now that nothing 
remains, but in all reason the certain hopes of a speedy and 
immediate settlement for ever in a firm and free commonwealth, 
for this extolled and magnified nation, regardless both of 
honour won, or deliverances vouchsafed from heaven, to fall 
back, or rather to creep back so poorly, as it seems the multi- 
tude would, to their once abjured and detested thraldom of 
kingship, to be ourselves the slanderers of our own just and 
religious deeds, though done by some to covetous and ambi- 
tious ends, yet not therefore to be stained with their infamy, 
or they to asperse the integrity of others ; and yet these now 
by revolting from the conscience of deeds well done, both in 
church and state, to throw away and forsake, or rather to be- 
tray, a just and noble cause for the mixture of bad men who 
have ill-managed and abused it (which had our fathers done 
heretofore, and on the same pretence deserted true religion, 
what had long ere this become of our gospel, and all protes- 
tant reformation so much intermixed with the avarice and 
ambition of some reformers?), and by thus relapsing, to verify 
all the bitter predictions of our triumphing enemies, who will 
now think they wisely discerned and justly censured both us 
and all our actions as rash, rebellious, hypocritical, and impi- 
ous ; not only argues a strange, degenerate contagion suddenly 
spread among us, fitted and prepared for new slavery, but will 
render us a scorn and derision to all our neighbours,' 



SAMSON AGONISTES 1 8/ 



OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM WHICH 
IS CALLED TRAGEDY 

Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held 
the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems ; 
therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and 
fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such-like 
passions, — that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure 
with a kind of dehght, stirred up by reading or seeing those 
passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own 
effects to make good his assertion ; for so, in physic, things of 
melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour 
against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers 
and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, fre- 
quently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate 
their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not 
unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy 
Scripture, i Cor. xv. 33 ; and Paraeus, commenting on the 
Revelatio7i, divides the whole book, as a tragedy, into acts, 
distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and song 
between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not 
a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that 
honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious than before 
of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Caesar also had 
begun his Ajax, but, unable to please his own judgment with 
what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca, the philosopher, 
is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the 
best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, 
a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity 
of his person to write a tragedy, which is entitled ' Christ 
Suffering.' This is mentioned to vindicate Tragedy from the 
small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many 



1 88 SAA/SO.V AGONISTES 

it undergoes at this day with other common interludes ; hap- 
pening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with 
tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar 
persons : which by all judicious hath been counted absurd, and 
brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. 
And though ancient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using some- 
times, in case of self-defence or explanation, that which Martial 
calls an Epistle, in behalf of this tragedy, coming forth after 
the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes 
for best, thus much beforehand may be epistled, — that Chorus 
is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only, but 
modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling 
therefore of this poem, with good reason, the Ancients and 
Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and 
fame. The measure of verse used in the Chorus is of all sorts, 
called by the Greeks monostrophic, or rather apolelynnenon^ 
without regard had to strophe, antistrophe, or epode, — 
which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then 
used with the Chorus that sung ; not essential to the poem, and 
therefore not material ; or, being divided into stanzas or 
pauses, they may be called allxostropha. Division into act 
and scene, referring chiefly to the stage (to which this work 
never was intended), is here omitted. 

It suffices if the whole drama be found not produced beyond 
the fifth act. Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly 
called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, — which is nothing 
indeed but such economy, or disposition of the fable, as may 
stand best with verisimilitude and decorum, — they only will 
best judge who are not unacquainted with v^schylus, Sopho- 
cles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by 
any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write Tragedy. 
The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins 
and ends, is, according to ancient rule and best example, 
within the space of twenty-four hours. — M. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 189 



THE ARGUMENT 

Safnson, made captive, bliftd, and now in the prison at Gaza, 
there to labour as in a common workhouse, on a festival day, 
in the gene?-al cessation from labour, comes forth iftto the open 
air, to a place nigh, somewhat retired, there to sit a while and 
bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be 
visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which niake 
the Cho7'us, who seek to comfort him what they can ; theti by 
his old father, Manoa, 7vho endeavours the like, and withal tells 
hiin his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom; lastly, that 
this feast was proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of thanks - 
giving for their deliverance from the hands of Samson — which 
yet more troubles him. Majioa theft departs to prosecute his 
endeavour with the Philistian lords for Samson's redemption : 
who, in the meanwhile, is visited by other persons, and, lastly, 
by a public officer to require his coining to the feast before the 
lords and people, to play or show his strength in their presence. 
He at first refuses, dis?nissing the public officer with absolute 
denial to come : at length, persuaded inwardly that this was 
from God, he yields to go along with hi?n, who came now the 
second time with great threatenings to fetch hi?n. The Chorus 
yet remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope 
to pj'ocure ere long his son's deliverance ; in the midst of which 
discourse an Ebrew comes in haste, confusedly at first, and 
afterwards 7nore distinctly, relating the catastrophe — what 
Samson had done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself ; 
wherewith the Tragedy ends. 



190 SAMSON AGONISTES 



THE PERSONS 

Samson. 

Manoa, the Father of Samson. 
Dalila, his wife. 
Harapha, of Gath. 
PubUc Officer. 
Messenger. 
Chorus of Danites. 
The Scene, before the Prison in Gaza. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 191 



SAMSON AGONISTES 

Sa?fison. A little onward lend thy guiding hand 
To these dark steps, a little further on ; 
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade. 
There I am wont to sit, when any chance 
Relieves me from my task of servile toil, 5 

Daily in the common prison else enjoined me, 
Where I, a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw 
The air, imprisoned also, close and damp, 
Unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends — 
The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet, 10 
With day-spring born ; here leave me to respire. 
This day a solemn feast the people hold 
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid 
Laborious works. UnwilHngly this rest 
Their superstition yields me ; hence with leave 15 

Retiring from the popular noise, I seek 
This unfrequented place to find some ease — 
Ease to the body some, none to the mind 
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm 
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone 20 

But rush upon me thronging, and present 
Times past, what once I was, and what am now. 
Oh, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold 
Twice by an Angel, who at last, in sight 
Of both my parents, all in flames ascended 25 

From off the altar where an offering burned, 
As in a fiery column charioting 
His godlike presence, and from some great act 
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race ? 



192 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed 30 

As of a person separate to God, 
Designed for great exploits, if I must die 
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out. 
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze, 
To grind in brazen fetters under task 35 

With this heaven-gifted strength ? O glorious strength, 
Put to the labour of a beast, debased 
Lower than bond-slave ! Promise was that I 
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver ! 
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 40 

Eyeless, in Gaza, at the mill, with slaves. 
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke. 
Yet stay ; let me not rashly call in doubt 
Divine prediction. What if all foretold 
Had been fulfilled but through mine own default? 45 

Whom have I to complain of but myself. 
Who this high gift of strength committed to me, 
In what part lodged, how easily bereft me. 
Under the seal of silence could not keep. 
But weakly to a woman must reveal it, 50 

O'ercome with importunity and tears ? 
O impotence of mind, in body strong ! 
But what is strength without a double share 
Of wisdom ? vast, unwieldy, burdensome, 
Proudly secure, yet Hable to fall 55 

By weakest subdeties ; not made to rule, 
■ But to subserve where wisdom bears command. 
God, when he gave me strength, to show withal 
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair. 
But peace ! I must not quarrel with the will 60 

Of highest dispensation, which herein 
Haply had ends above my reach to know. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 



93 



Suffices that to me strength is my bane, 
And proves the source of all my miseries — 
So many, and so huge, that each apart 65 

Would ask a hfe to wail. But chief of all, 
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! 
Blind among enemies ! Oh worse than chains. 
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! 
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, 70 

And all her various objects of delight 
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. 
Inferior to the vilest now become 
Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me : 
They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, exposed 75 

To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, 
Within doors, or without, still as a fool, 
In power of others, never in my own — 
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. 
Oh dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 80 

Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day ! 
O first created beam, and thou great Word, 
' Let there be light, and light was over all,' 
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree ? 85 

The sun to me is dark 
And silent as the moon. 
When she deserts the night, 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. 
Since light so necessary is to life, 90 

And almost Hfe itself, if it be true 
That light is in the soul. 
She all in every part, why was the sight 
To such a tender ball as the eye confined, 
So obvious and so easy to be quenched, 95 

o 



194 SA/l/SOJV AGONISTES 

And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, 

That she might look at will through every pore? 

Then had I not been thus exiled from Hght, 

As in the land of darkness, yet in light, 

To live a hfe half dead, a living death, lOO 

And buried ; but, oh yet more miserable ! 

Myself, my sepulchre, a moving grave ; 

Buried, yet not exempt. 

By privilege of death and burial, 

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs ; 105 

But made hereby obnoxious more 

To all the miseries of life, 

Life in captivity 

Among inhuman foes. 

But who are these? for with joint pace I hear no 

The tread of many feet steering this way ; 

Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare 

At my affliction, and perhaps to insult — 

Their daily practice to afflict me more. 

Chorus. This, this is he ; softly a while ; 115 

Let us not break in upon him. 
Oh change beyond report, thought, or belief ! 
See how he hes at random, carelessly diffused, 
With languished head unpropt. 

As one past hope, abandoned, 120 

And by himself given over. 
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds 
O'er-worn and soiled. 

Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, 
That heroic, that renowned, 125 

Irresistible Samson? whom unarmed. 

No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand ; 
Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid ; 



SAMSON AGONISTES 1 95 

Ran on embattled armies clad in iron, 

And, weaponless himself, 130 

Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery 

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass, 

Chaly bean-tempered steel, and frock of mail 

Adamantean proof; 

But safest he who stood aloof, 135 

When insupportably his foot advanced, 

In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools. 

Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite 

Fled from his lion ramp ; old warriors turned 

Their plated backs under his heel, 140 

Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust. 

Then with what trivial weapon came to hand. 

The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone, 

A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine, 

In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day. 145 

Then by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore. 

The gates of Azza, post and massy bar. 

Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old. 

No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so ; 

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven. 150 

Which shall I first bewail. 

Thy bondage or lost sight ? 

Prison within prison 

Inseparably dark. 

Thou art become (Oh worst imprisonment !) 155 

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul 

(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain) 

Imprisoned now indeed. 

In real darkness of the body dwells. 

Shut up from outward light 160 

To incorporate with gloomy night ; 



196 SAMSON AGONISTES 

For inward light, alas ! 
Puts forth no visual beam. 

mirror of our fickle state, 

Since man on earth unparalleled, 165 

The rarer thy example stands. 

By how much from the top of wondrous glory, 

Strongest of mortal men. 

To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen. 

For him I reckon not in high estate 1 70 

Whom long descent of birth 

Or the sphere of fortune raises ; 

But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, 

Might have subdued the earth. 

Universally crowned with highest praises. 1 75 

Samson. I hear the sound of words ; their sense the air 
Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. 

Chorus. He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, 
The glory late of Israel, now the grief ! 

We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown, 180 

From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale, 
To visit or bewail thee ; or, if better. 
Counsel or consolation we may bring. 
Salve to thy sores ; apt words have power to swage 
The tumours of a troubled mind, 185 

And are as balm to festered wounds. 

Samsoti. Your coming, friends, revives me ; for I learn 
Now of my own experience, not by talk. 
How counterfeit a coin they are who ' friends ' 
Bear in their superscription (of the most 190 

1 would be understood). In prosperous days 
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head. 
Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends. 
How many evils have enclosed me round ; 



SAMSON AGONISTES 197 



Yet that which was the worst now least afiflicts me 



195 



Blindness ; for had I sight, confused with shame, 

How could I once look up, or heave the head, 

Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwracked 

My vessel trusted to me from above. 

Gloriously rigged ; and for a word, a tear, 200 

Fool ! have divulged the secret gift of God 

To a deceitful woman? tell me, friends, 

Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool * 

In every street? do they not say, 'how well 

Are come upon him his deserts?' yet why? 205 

Immeasurable strength they might behold 

In me, of wisdom nothing more than mean. 

This with the other should, at least, have paired ; 

These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse. 

Chorus. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men 210 

Have erred, and by bad women been deceived ; 
And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise. 
Deject not, then, so overmuch thyself. 
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides. 
Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder 215 

Why thou shouldst wed PhiHstian women rather 
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair. 
At least of thy own nation, and as noble. 

Sa7nson. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased 
Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed 220 

The daughter of an infidel. They knew not 
That what I motioned was of God ; I knew 
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged 
The marriage on, that, by occasion hence, 
I might begin Israel's deliverance — 225 

The work to which I was divinely called. 
She proving false, the next I took to wife 



198 SAMSON AG ONI ST RS 

(Oh that I never had ! fond wish too late !) 

Was in the vale of Sorec, DaHla, 

That specious monster, my accomphshed snare. 230 

I thought it lawful from my former act, 

And the same end, still watching to oppress 

Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer 

She was not the prime cause, but I myself. 

Who, vanquished with a peal of words (oh weakness !) 235 

Gave up my fort of silence to a woman. 

Chorus. In seeking just occasion to provoke 
The PhiHstine, thy country's enemy, 
Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness : 
Yet Israel still serves with all his sons. 240 

Samson. That fault I take not on me, but transfer 
On Israel's governors and heads of tribes. 
Who, seeing those great acts which God had done 
Singly by me against their conquerors. 

Acknowledged not, or not at all considered, 245 

Deliverance offered. I, on the other side. 
Used no ambition to commend my deeds ; 
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer. 
But they persisted deaf, and would not seem 
To count them things worth notice, till at length 250 

Their lords, the Philistines, with gathered powers, 
Entered Judea, seeking me, who then 
Safe to the rock of Etham was retired — 
Not flying, but forecasting in what place 
To set upon them, what advantaged best. 255 

Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent 
The harass of their land, beset me round ; 
I wilHngly on some conditions came 
Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me 
To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey, 260 



SAMSO/V AGONIST ES 1 99 

Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads 

Touched with the flame : on their whole host I flew 

Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felled 

Their choicest youth ; they only lived who fled. 

Had Judah that day joined, or one whole tribe, 265 

They had by this possessed the towers of Gath, 

And lorded over them whom they now serve. 

But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, 

And by their vices brought to servitude. 

Than to love bondage more than liberty — 270 

Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty — 

And to despise, or envy, or suspect, 

Whom God hath of his special favour raised 

As their deliverer? If he aught begin. 

How frequent to desert him, and at last 275 

To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds ! 

Chorus. Thy words to my remembrance bring 
How Succoth and the fort of Penuel 
Their great deliverer contemned, 

The matchless Gideon, in pursuit 280 

Of Madian, and her vanquished kings ; 
And how ingrateful Ephraim 
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, 
Not worse than by his shield and spear. 

Defended Israel from the Ammonite, 285 

Had not his prowess quelled their pride 
In that sore battle when so many died 
Without reprieve, adjudged to death, 
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth. 

Samson. Of such examples add me to the roll. 290 

Me easily indeed mine may neglect. 
But God's proposed deliverance not so. 

Chorus. Just are the ways of God, 



200 SAMSON AGONISTES 

And justifiable to men, 

Unless there be who think not God at all. 295 

If any be, they walk obscure ; 

For of such doctrine never was there school 

But the heart of tlie fool, 

And no man therein doctor but himself. 

Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just, 300 
As to his own edicts found contradicting ; 
Then give the reins to wandering thought, 
Regardless of his glory's diminution, 
Till, by their own perplexities involved, 
They ravel more, still less resolved, 305 

But never find self-satisfying solution. 

As if they would confine the Interminable, 
And tie him to his own prescript. 
Who made our laws to bind us, not himself, 
And hath full right to exempt 310 

Whomso it pleases him by choice 
From national obstriction, without taint 
Of sin, or legal debt ; 
For with his own laws he can best dispense. 

He would not else, who never wanted means, 315 

Nor in respect of the enemy just cause, 
To set his people free. 
Have prompted this heroic Nazarite, 
Against his vow of strictest purity. 

To seek in marriage that fallacious bride, 320. 

Unclean, unchaste. 

Down, Reason, then ; at least, vain reasonings, down ; 
Though Reason here aver 
That moral verdict quits her of unclean : 
Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his. 325 

But see ! here comes thy reverend sire. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 201 

With careful step, locks white as down, 

Old Manoa : advise 

Forthwith how thou ought'st to receive him. 

Samson. Ay me ! another inward grief, awaked 330 

With mention of that name, renews the assault. 

Manoa. Brethren and men of Dan (for such ye seem, 
Though in this uncouth place), if old respect. 
As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend, 
My son, now captive, hither hath informed 335 

Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age, 
Came lagging after, say if he be here. 

Choi-US. As signal now in low dejected state, 
As erst in highest, behold him where he Hes. 

Manoa. Oh miserable change ! is this the man? 340 

That invincible Samson, far renowned, 
The dread of Israel's foes, who with a strength 
Equivalent to Angels', walked their streets, 
None offering fight ; who, single combatant. 
Duelled their armies ranked in proud array, 345 

Himself an army, now unequal match 
To save himself against a coward armed 
At one spear's length. Oh ever-faihng trust 
In mortal strength ! and oh, what not in man 
Deceivable and vain? Nay, what thing good 350 

Prayed for, but often proves our woe, our bane ? 
I prayed for children, and thought barrenness 
In wedlock a reproach ; I gained a son. 
And such a son as all men hailed me happy. 
Who would be now a father in my stead? 355 

Oh, wherefore did God grant me my request, 
And as a blessing with such pomp adorned? 
Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt 
Our earnest prayers, then, given with solemn hand 



202 SAMSOiV AGONTSTES 

xAis graces, draw a scorpion's tail behind? 360 

For this did the Angel twice descend ? for this 

Ordained thy nurture holy, as of a plant 

Select and sacred? glorious for a while. 

The miracle of men ; then in an hour 

Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound, 365 

Thy foes' derision, captive, poor and Wind, 

Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves ! 

Alas ! methinks whom God hath chosen once 

To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err. 

He should not so o'erwhelm, and as a thrall 370 

Subject him to so foul indignities. 

Be it but for honour's sake of former deeds. 

Samson. Appoint not heavenly disposition, father. 
Nothing of all these evils hath befallen me 
But justly ; I myself have brought them on ; 375 

Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile, 
As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned 
The mystery of God, given me under pledge 
Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman, 
A Canaanite, my faithless enemy. 380 

This well I knew, nor was at all surprised. 
But warned by oft experience. Did not she 
Of Timna first betray me, and reveal 
The secret wrested from me in her highth 
Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight 385 

To them who had corrupted her, my spies 
And rivals ? In this other was there found 
More faith, who, also in her prime of love, 
Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold. 
Though offered only, by the scent conceived 390 

Her spurious first-born, Treason against me? 
Thrice she assayed, with flattering prayers and sighs 



SAMSON AGONISTES 203 

And amorous reproaches, to win from me 

My capital secret, in what part my strength 

Lay stored, in what part summed, that she might know ; 395 

Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport 

Her importunity, each time perceiving 

How openly and with what impudence 

She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse 

Than undissembled hate) with what contempt 400 

She sought to make me traitor to myself. 

Yet, the fourth time, when, mustering all her wiles, 

With blandished parleys, feminine assaults. 

Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night 

To storm me, over-watched, and wearied out, 405 

At times when men seek most repose and rest, 

I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart. 

Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved, 

Might easily have shook off all her snares ; 

But foul effeminacy held me yoked 410 

Her bond-slave. Oh indignity, oh blot 

To honour and religion ! servile mind 

Rewarded well with servile punishment ! 

The base degree to which I now am fallen, 

These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base 415 

As was my former servitude, ignoble, 

Unmanly, ignominious, infamous. 

True slavery ; and that blindness worse than this, 

That saw not how degenerately I served. 

Manoa. I cannot praise thy marriage-choices, son, 420 
Rather approved them not ; but thou didst plead 
Divine impulsion prompting how thou might'st 
Find some occasion to infest our foes. 
I state not that ; this I am sure — our foes 
Found soon occasion thereby to make thee 425 



204 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Their captive, and their triumph ; thou the sooner 

Temptation found'st, or over-potent charms, 

To violate the sacred trust of silence 

Deposited within thee — which to have kept 

Tacit, was in thy power ; true ; and thou bear'st 430 

Enough, and more, the burden of that fault ; 

Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying, 

That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains : 

This day the Philistines a popular feast 

Here celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim 435 

Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud, 

To Dagon, as their god who hath dehvered 

Thee, Saniion, bound and blind, into their hands. 

Them out of thine, who slevv'st them many a slain. 

So Dagon shall be magnified, and God 440 

Besides whom is no god, compared with idols, 

Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn 

By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine ; 

Which to have come to pass by means of thee, 

Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest, 445 

Of all reproach the most with shame that ever 

Could have befallen thee and thy father's house. 

Samson. Father, I do acknowledge and confess 
That I this honour, I this pomp, have brought 
To Dagon, and advanced his praises high 450 

Among the Heathen round ; to God have brought 
Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths 
Of idolists and atheists ; have brought scandal 
To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt 
In feeble hearts, propense enough before 455 

To waver, or fall off and join with idols ; 
Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow. 
The anguish of my soul, that suffers not 



SAMSON AGONISTES 205 

Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest. 

This only hope relieves me, that the strife 460 

With me hath end ; all the contest is now 

'Tvvixt God and Dagon. Dagon hath presumed, 

Me overthrown, to enter lists with God, 

His deity comparing and preferring 

Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure, 465 

Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked. 

But will arise and his great name assert. 

Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive 

Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him 

Of all these boasted trophies won on me, 470 

And with confusion blank his worshippers. 

Manoa. With cause this hope relieves thee, arid these words 
I as a prophecy receive ; for God 
(Nothing more certain) will not long defer 
To vindicate the glory of his name 475 

Against all competition, nor will long 
Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord, 
Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done ? 
Thou must not in the mean while, here forgot, 
Lie in this miserable loathsome plight 480 

Neglected. I already have made way 
To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat 
About thy ransom : well they may by this 
Have satisfied their utmost of revenge. 

By pains and slaveries, worse than death, inflicted 485 

On thee, who now no more canst do them harm. 

Samson. Spare that proposal, father ; spare the trouble 
Of that solicitation. Let me here, 
As I deserve, pay on my punishment, 

And expiate, if possible, my crime, 490 

Shameful garrulity. To have revealed 



206 SAAfSOJV AGONISTES 

Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend, 

How heinous had the fact been, how deserving 

Contempt and scorn of all — to be excluded 

All friendship, and avoided as a blab, 495 

The mark of fool set on his front ! 

But I God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret 

Presumptuously have pubhshed, impiously, 

Weakly at least, and shamefully — a sin 

That Gentiles in their parables condemn 500 

To their Abyss and horrid pains confined. 

Manoa. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite ; 
But act not in thy own affliction, son. 
Repent the sin ; but, if the punishment 
Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids ; 505 

Or the execution leave to high disposal, 
And let another hand, not thine, exact 
Thy penal forfeit from thyself. Perhaps 
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt ; 
Who ever more approves and more accepts 510 

(Best pleased with humble and filial submission) 
Him who, imploring mercy, sues for Hfe, 
Than who, self-rigorous, chooses death as due ; 
, Which argues over-just, and self-displeased 
For self-offence, more than for God offended. 515 

Reject not, then, what offered means. Who knows 
But God hath set before us to return thee 
Home to thy country and his sacred house, 
Where thou mayst bring thy offerings, to avert 
His further ire, with prayers and vows renewed? 520 

Samson. His pardon I implore ; but as for life, 
To what end should I seek it? when in strength 
All mortals I excelled, and great in hopes, 
With youthful courage, and magnanimous thoughts 



SAMSON AGONISTES 207 

Of birth from Heaven foretold and high exploits, 525 

Full of divine instinct, after some proof 

Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond 

The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed, 

Fearless of danger, hke a petty god 

I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded 530 

On hostile ground, none daring my affront — 

Then, swollen with pride, into the snare I fell 

Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains. 

Softened with pleasure and voluptuous Hfe, 

At length to lay my head and hallowed pledge 535 

Of all my strength in the lascivious lap 

Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me 

Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece. 

Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled. 

Shaven, and disarmed among mine enemies. 540 

Chorus. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks, 
Which many a famous warrior overturns. 
Thou could'st repress ; nor did the dancing ruby 
Sparkling, out-poured, the flavour, or the smell, 
Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men, 545 

Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream. 

Samson. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed 
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure 
With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod, 
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying 550 

Thirst, and refreshed ; nor envied them the grape 
Whose heads that turbulent hquor fills with fumes. 

Chorus. Oh madness ! to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear 555 
His mighty champion, strong above compare. 
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook ! 



208 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Samson. But what availed this temperance, not complete 
Against another object more enticing? 

What boots it at one gate to make defence, 560 

And at another to let in the foe, 
Effeminately vanquished ? by which means, 
Now bUnd, disheartened, shamed, dishonoured, quelled, 
To what can I be useful ? wherein serve 

My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed? 565 

But to sit idle on the household hearth, 
A burdenous drone ; to visitants a gaze. 
Or pitied object ; these redundant locks. 
Robustious to no purpose, clustering down. 
Vain monument of strength ; till length of years 5 70 

And sedentary numbness craze my limbs 
To a contemptible old age obscure. 
Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread, 
Till vermin, or the draff of servile food. 

Consume me, and oft-invocated death 5 75 

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains. 

Manoa. Wilt thou then serve the PhiHstines with that gift 
Which was expressly given thee to annoy them ? 
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle. 

Inglorious, unemployed, with age outworn. 580 

But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer 
From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay 
After the brunt of batUe, can as easy 
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring, 
Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast. 585 

And I persuade me so. Why else this strength 
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks ? 
His might continues in thee not for nought. 
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus. 

Samson. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend — 590 



SA A/SON AGONISTES 2O9 

That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light, 

Nor the other light of Hfe continue long, 

But yield to double darkness nigh at hand ; 

So much I feel my genial spirits droop, 

My hopes all flat : Nature within me seems 595 

In all her functions weary of herself; 

My race of glory run, and race of shame. 

And I shall shortly be with them that rest. 

Manoa. Believe not these suggestions, which proceed 
From anguish of the mind, and humours black 600 

That mingle with thy fancy. I, however, 
Must not omit a father's timely care 
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance 
By ransom or how else. Mean while be calm. 
And healing words from these thy friends admit. 605 

Samsofi. Oh, that torment should not be confined 
To the body's wounds and sores, 
With maladies innumerable 
In heart, head, breast, and reins, 

But must secret passage find 610 

To the inmost mind, 
There exercise all his fierce accidents, 
And on her purest spirits prey. 
As on entrails, joints, and limbs. 

With answerable pains, but more intense, 615 

Though void of corporal sense ! 

My griefs not only pain me 
As a lingering disease. 
But, finding no redress, ferment and rage ; 
Nor less than wounds immedicable 620 

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene. 
To black mortification. 
Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, 



210 SAMSON AG ON I ST ES 

Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, 

Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise 625 

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb 

Or medicinal liquor can assuage. 

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. 

Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er 

To death's benumbing opium as my only cure ; 630 

Thence faintings, swoonings of despair, 

And sense of Heaven's desertion. 

I was his nursling once and choice delight, 
His, destined from the womb. 

Promised by heavenly message twice descending. 635 
Under his special eye 
Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain ; 
He led me on to mightiest deeds. 
Above the nerve of mortal arm. 

Against the Uncircumcised, our enemies : 640 

But now hath cast me off as never known, 
And to those cruel enemies, 
Whom I by his appointment had provoked, 
Left me all helpless, with the irreparable loss 
Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated 645 

The subject of their cruelty or scorn. 
Nor am I in the list of them that hope ; 
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless. 
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard, 
No long petition, speedy death, 650 

The close of all my miseries, and the balm. 

Chorus. Many are the sayings of the wise, 
In ancient and in modern books enrolled. 
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude, 
And to the bearing well of all calamities, 655 

All chances incident to man's frail life. 



SAMSON A G ONIS TES 2 1 I 

Consolatories writ 

With studied argument, and much persuasion sought, 

Lenient of grief and anxious thought. 

But with the afflicted in his pangs their sound 660 

Little prevails, or rather seems a tune 

Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint, 

Unless he feel within 

Some source of consolation from above, 

Secret refreshings that repair his strength 665 

And fainting spirits uphold. 

God of our fathers ! what is Man, 
That thou towards him with hand so various — 
Or might I say contrarious ? — 

Temper'st thy providence through his short course : 670 

Not evenly, as thou rul'st 

The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, 
Irrational and brute? 
Nor do I name of men the common rout, 
That, wand'ring loose about, 675 

Grow up and perish, as the summer fly, 
Heads without name, no more remembered ; 
But such as thou hast solemnly elected, 
With gifts and graces eminently adorned. 
To some great work, thy glory, 680 

And people's safety, which in part they effect. 
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft. 
Amidst their highth of noon, 

Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard 
Of highest favours past 685 

From thee on them, or them to thee of service. 

Nor only dost degrade them, or remit 
To life obscured, which were a fair dismission. 
But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high — 



212 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Unseemly falls in human eye, 690 

Too grievous for the trespass or omission ; 

Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword 

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses 

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived, 

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 695 

And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude. 

If these they scape, perhaps in poverty 

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down, 

Painful diseases and deformed. 

In crude old age ; 700 

Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 

The punishment of dissolute days. In fine. 

Just or unjust alike seem miserable. 

For oft ahke both come to evil end. 

So deal not with this once thy glorious champion, 705 
The image of thy strength, and mighty minister. 
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already ! 
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn 
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end. 

But who is this? what thing of sea or land? 710 

— Female of sex it seems — 
That so bedecked, ornate, and gay, 
Comes this way sailing, 
Like a stately ship 

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles 715 

Of Javan or Gadire, 

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, 
Sails filled, and streamers waving. 
Courted by all the winds that hold them play, 
An amber scent of odorous perfume 720 

Her harbinger, a damsel train behind ; 
Some rich Philistian matron she may seem, 



SAMSON AGONISTES 



213 



And now, at nearer view, no other certain 

Than Dahla thy wife. 724 

Sa?nsoii. My wife ? my traitress ; let her not come near me. 

Chorus. Yet on she moves ; now stands and eyes thee fixed. 
About to have spoke ; but now, with head decHned, 
Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps, 
And words addressed seem into tears dissolved, 
Wetting the borders of her silken veil. 730 

But now again she makes address to speak. 

Dalila. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution 
I came, still dreading thy displeasure, Samson, 
Which to have merited, without excuse, 

I cannot but acknowledge ; yet if tears 735 

May expiate (though the fact more evil drew 
In the perverse event than I foresaw) , 
My penance hath not slackened, though my pardon 
No way assured. But conjugal affection. 

Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt, 740 

Hath led me on, desirous to behold 
Once more thy face, and know of thy estate, 
If aught in my ability may serve 
To lighten what thou sufferest, and appease 
Thy mind with what amends is in my power, 745 

Though late, yet in some part to recompense 
My rash but more unfortunate misdeed. 

Samson. Out, out, hysena ! these are thy wonted arts. 
And arts of every woman false like thee — 
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray; 750 

Then, as repentant, to submit, beseech. 
And reconcilement move with feigned remorse. 
Confess, and promise wonders in her change — 
Not truly penitent, but chief to try 
Her husband, how far urged his patience bears, 755 



214 SAMSON AGONISTES 

His virtue or weakness which way to assail : 

Then, with more cautious and instructed skill, 

Again transgresses, and again submits ; 

That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled, 

With goodness principled not to reject 760 

The penitent, but ever to forgive. 

Are drawn to wear out miserable days, 

Entangled with a poisonous bosom-snake, 

If not by quick destruction soon cut off, 

As I by thee, to ages an example. 765 

Dalila. Yet hear me, Samson ; not that I endeavour 
To lessen or extenuate my offence. 
But that, on the other side, if it be weighed 
By itself, with aggravations not surcharged, 
Or else with just allowance counterpoised, 770 

I may, if possible, thy pardon find 
The easier towards me, or thy hatred less. 
First granting, as I do, it was a weakness 
In me, but incident to all our sex. 

Curiosity, inquisitive, importune 775 

Of secrets, then with like infirmity 
To publish them — both common female faults — 
Was it not weakness also to make known. 
For importunity, that is for nought, 

Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety? 780 

To what I did thou showd'st me first the way. 
But I to enemies revealed, and should not ; 
Nor should'st thou have trusted that to woman's frailty : 
Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. 
Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle, 785 

So near related, or the same of kind ; . 
Thine forgive mine, that men may censure thine 
The gentler, if severely thou exact not 



SAMSON AGONISTES 215 

More strength from me than in thyself was found. 

And what if love, which thou interpret'st hate, 790 

The jealousy of love, powerful of sway 

In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee, 

Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable 

Of fancy, feared lest one day thou would'st leave me 

As her at Timna ; sought by all means, therefore, 795 

How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest : 

No better way I saw than by importuning 

To learn thy secrets, get into my power 

Thy key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say, 

* Why, then, revealed ? ' I was assured by those 800 

Who tempted me, that nothing was designed 

Against thee but safe custody and hold. 

That made for me ; I knew that liberty 

Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises. 

While I at home sat full of cares and fears, 805 

Wailing thy absence in my widowed bed ; 

Here I should still enjoy thee, day and night, 

Mine and love's prisoner, not the Phihstines*, 

Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad. 

Fearless at home of partners in my love. 810 

These reasons in love's law have passed for good, 

Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps ; 

And love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much woe, 

Yet always pity or pardon hath obtained. 

Be not unlike all others, not austere 815 

As thou art strong, inflexible as steel. 

If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed. 

In uncompassionate anger do not so. 

Samson. How cunningly the sorceress displays 
Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine ! 820 

That malice, not repentance, brought thee hither. 



2 1 6 SAMSON A G ON IS TES 

By this appears. I gave, thou say'st, the example, 

I led the way ; bitter reproach, but true ; 

I to myself was false ere thou to me. 

Such pardon, therefore, as I give my folly, 825 

Take to thy wicked deed ; which when thou seest 

Impartial, self-severe, inexorable, 

Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather 

Confess it feigned. Weakness is thy excuse. 

And I believe it — weakness to resist 830 

Philistian gold. If weakness may excuse. 

What murtherer, what traitor, parricide. 

Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? 

All wickedness is weakness ; that plea, therefore, 

With God or man will gain thee no remission. 835 

But love constrained thee ! call it furious rage 

To satisfy thy lust. Love seeks to have love ; 

My love how could'st thou hope, who took'st the way 

To raise in me inexpiable hate, 

Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed? 840 

In vain thou striv'st to cover shame with shame. 

Or by evasions thy crime uncover'st more. 

Dalila. Since thou determin'st weakness for no plea 
In man or woman, though to thy own condemning. 
Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides, 845 

What sieges girt me round, ere I consented ; 
Which might have awed the best-resolved of men. 
The constantest, to have yielded without blame. 
It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay'st, 
That wrought with me. Thou know'st the magistrates 850 
And princes of my country came in person. 
Solicited, commanded, threatened, urged, 
Adjured by all the bonds of civil duty 
And of religion; pressed how just it was, 



SAMSON AGONISTES 21/ 

How honourable, how glorious, to entrap 855 

A common enemy, who had destroyed 
Such numbers of our nation : and the priest 
Was not behind, but ever at my ear, 
Preaching how meritorious with the gods 
It would be to ensnare an irreligious 860 

Dishonourer of Dagon. What had I 
To oppose against such powerful arguments? 
Only my love of thee held long debate. 
And combated in silence all these reasons 
With hard contest. At length, that grounded maxim, 865 

So rife and celebrated in the mouths 
Of wisest men, that to the public good 
Private respects must yield, with grave authority 
Took full possession of me, and prevailed ; 
Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining. 870 

Samson. I thought where all thy circling wiles would end — 
In feigned religion, smooth hypocrisy ! 
But, had thy love, still odiously pretended. 
Been, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee 
Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. 875 

I, before all the daughters of my tribe 
And of my nation, chose thee from among 
My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew'st, 
Too well ; unbosomed all my secrets to thee, 
Not out of levity, but overpowered 880 

By thy request, who could deny thee nothing ; 
Yet now am judged an enemy. Why, then. 
Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband. 
Then, as since then, thy country's foe professed? 
Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave 885 

Parents and country ; nor was I their subject, 
Nor under their protection, but my own ; 



2l8 SAMSO.V AGOXISTES 

Thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life 

Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly, 

Against the law of nature, law of nations ; 890 

No more thy country, but an impious crew 

Of men conspiring to uphold their state 

By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends 

For which our country is a name so dear ; 

Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee ; 895 

To please thy gods thou didst it ! gods unable 

To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes 

But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction 

Of their own deity, gods cannot be ; 

Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared. 900 

These false pretexts and varnished colours failing, 

Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear ! 

Dalila. In argument with men a woman ever 
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. 

Samson. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath ! 
Witness when I was worried with thy peals. 906 

Dalila. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken 
In what I thought would have succeeded best. 
Let me obtain forgiveness of thee, Samson ; 
Afford me place to show what recompense 910 

Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone, 
Misguided. Only what remains past cure 
Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist 
To afflict thyself in vain. Though sight be lost, 
Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed 915 

Where other senses want not their delights — 
At home, in leisure and domestic ease, 
Exempt from many a care and chance to which 
Eye-sight exposes, daily, men abroad. 
I to the lords will intercede, not doubting 920 



SAMSON AGONISTES 219 

Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee 

From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide 

With me, where my redoubled love and care. 

With nursing dihgence, to me glad office, 

May ever tend about thee to old age, 925 

With all things grateful cheered, and so supplied 

That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss. 

Samson. No, no ; of my condition take no care ; 
It fits not ; thou and I long since are twain ; 
Nor think me so unwary or accursed, 930 

To bring my feet again into the snare 
Where once I have been caught. I know thy trains, 
Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils. 
Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbUng charms. 
No more on me have power; their force is nulled; 935 

So much of adder's wisdom I have learned, 
To fence my ear against thy sorceries. 

If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men , 

Loved, honoured, feared me, thou alone could'st hate me. 
Thy husband, sHght me, sell me, and forgo me, 940 

How would 'st thou use me now, blind, and thereby 
Deceivable, in most things as a child 
Helpless, thence easily contemned and scorned, 
And last neglected ! How would'st thou insult, 
When I must live uxorious to thy will 945 

In perfect thraldom ! how again betray me, 
Bearing my words and doings to the lords 
To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile ! 
This jail I count the house of liberty 
To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. 950 

Dalila. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand. 

Samson. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake 
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint. 



220 SAMSON AGONISTES 

At distance I forgive thee ; go with that ; 

Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works 955 

It hath brought forth to make thee memorable 

Among illustrious women, faithful wives ; 

Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold 

Of matrimonial treason : so farewell. 

Dalila. I see thou art implacable, more deaf 960 

To prayers than winds and seas ; yet winds to seas 
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore : 
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, 
Eternal tempest never to be calmed. 
Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing 965 

For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate ? 
Bid go with evil omen, and the brand 
Of infamy upon my name denounced. 
To mix with thy concernments I desist 
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 970 

Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed. 
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; 
On both his wings, one black, the other white, 
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight. 
My name, perhaps, among the Circumcised 975 

In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes, 
To all posterity may stand defamed, 
With malediction mentioned, and the blot 
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. 
But in my country, where I most desire, 980 

In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath, 
I shall be named among the famousest 
Of women, sung at solemn festivals. 
Living and dead recorded, who, to save 
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose 985 

Above the faith of wedlock-bands ; my tomb 



SAMSON AGONISTES 221 

With odours visited and annual flowers ; 

Not less renowned than in mount Ephraim 

Jael, who, with inhospitable guile, 

Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nailed. 990 

Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy 

The public marks of honour and reward 

Conferred upon me for the piety 

Which to my country I was judged to have shown. 

At this whoever envies or repines, 995 

I leave him to his lot, and like my own. 

Chorus. She's gone — a manifest serpent by her sting 
Discovered in the end, till now concealed. 

Samson. So let her go. God sent her to debase me. 
And aggravate my folly, who committed 1000 

To such a viper his most sacred trust 
Of secrecy, my safety, and my life. 

Chorus. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power. 
After ofl"ence returning, to regain 

Love once possessed, nor can be easily 1005 

Repulsed, without much inward passion felt, 
And secret sting of amorous remorse. 

Sainsoji. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, 
Not wedlock-treachery endangering hfe. 

Chorus. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, loio 

Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, 
That woman's love can win or long inherit ; 
But what it is, hard is to say. 
Harder to hit, 

Which way soever men refer it 1015 

(Much like thy riddle, Samson), in one day 
Or seven, though one should musing sit. 

If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride 
Had not so soon preferred 



222 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compared, 1020 

Successor in thy bed, 

Nor both so loosely disaUied 

Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously 

Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head. 

Is it for that such outward ornament 1025 

Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts 

Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant, 

Capacity not raised to apprehend 

Or value what is best 

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? 1030 

Or was too much of self-love mixed. 

Of constancy no root infixed, 

That either they love nothing, or not long? 

Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best. 
Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil, 1035 

Soft, modest, meek, demure, 
Once joined, the contrary she proves — a thorn 
Intestine, far within defensive arms 
A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue 
Adverse and turbulent ; or by her charms 1040 

Draws him awry, enslaved 
With dotage, and his sense depraved 
To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. 
What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, 
Embarked with such a steers-mate at the helm? 1045 

Favoured of heaven who finds 
One virtuous, rarely found. 
That in domestic good combines ! 
Happy that house ! his way to peace is smooth : 
But virtue which breaks through all opposition, 1050 
And all temptation can remove, 
Most shines and most is acceptable above. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 223 

Therefore God's universal law 
Gave to the man despotic power 

Over his female in due awe, 105 5 

Nor from that right to part an hour, 
Smile she or lour : 
So shall he least confusion draw 
On his whole life, not swayed 
By female usurpation, nor dismayed. 1060 

But had we best retire ? I see a storm. 

Sa??ison. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. 

Chorus. But this another kind of tempest brings. 

Samson. Be less abstruse ; my riddhng days are past. 

Chorus. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear 1065 
The bait of honied words ; a rougher tongue 
Draws hithervvard ; I know him by his stride. 
The giant Harapha of Gath, his look 
Haughty, as is his pile high-built and proud. 
Comes he in peace? what wind hath blown him hither 1070 
I less conjecture than when first I saw 
The sumptuous Dahla floating this way : 
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance. 

Samson. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. 1074 

Chorus. His fraught we soon shall know : he now arrives. 

Harapha. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance, 
As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been. 
Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath ; 
Men call me Harapha, of stock renowned 
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old 1080 

That Kiriathaim held. Thou know'st me now, 
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard 
Of thy prodigious might and feats performed, 
Incredible to me, — in this displeased, 
That I was never present on the place 1085 



224 SAMS OAT AGONISTES 

Of those encounters, where we might have tried 

Each other's force in camp or listed field ; 

And now am come to see of whom such noise 

Hath walked about, and each limb to survey, 

If thy appearance answer loud report. 1090 

Samso7i. The way to know were not to see, but taste. 

Harapha. Dost thou already single me? I thought 
Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. Oh, that fortune 
Had brought me to the field, where thou art famed 
To have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw ! 1095 

I should have forced thee soon with other arms, 
Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown ; 
So had the glory of prowess been recovered 
To Palestine, won by a Philistine 

From the unforeskinned race, of whom thou bear'st iioo 

The highest name for valiant acts ; that honour, 
Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, 
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out. 

Sa?nson. Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do 
What then thou would'st ; thou seest it in thy hand. 11 05 

Harapha. To combat with a blind man I disdain, 
And thou hast need much washing to be touched. 

Sa77ison. Such usage as your honourable lords 
Afford me, assassinated and betrayed ; 

Who durst not with their whole united powers mo 

In fight withstand me single and unarmed. 
Nor in the house with chamber-ambushes 
Close-banded durst attack me, no, not sleeping, 
Till they had hired a woman with their gold. 
Breaking her marriage-faith, to circumvent me. 11 15 

Therefore, without feigned shifts, let be assigned 
Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee. 
Or rather flight, no great advantage on me ; 



SAMSON AGONISTES 225 

Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet 

And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon, 1120 

Vant-brace and greaves and gauntlet ; add thy spear, 

A weaver's beam, and seven-times-folded shield : 

I only with an oaken staff will meet thee, 

And raise such outcries on thy clattered iron. 

Which long shall not withhold me from thy head, 11 25 

That in a little time while breath remains thee, 

Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath, to boast 

Again in safety what thou would'st have done 

To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more. 

Harapha. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms, 
Which greatest heroes have in battle worn, 1131 

Their ornament and safety, had not spells 
And black enchantments, some magician's art. 
Armed thee or charmed thee strong, which thou from Heaven 
Feign'dst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair, ii35 

Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs 
Were bristles ranged like those that ridge the back 
Of chafed wild boars or ruffled porcupines. 

Samson. I know no spells, use no forbidden arts ; 
My trust is in the Living God, who gave me, 11 40 

At my nativity, this strength, diffused 
No less through all my sinews, joints, and bones. 
Than thine, while I preserved these locks unshorn, 
The pledge of my unviolated vow. 

For proof hereof, if Dagon be thy god, 1145 

Go to his temple, invocate his aid 
With solemnest devotion, spread before him 
How highly it concerns his glory now 
To frustrate and dissolve these magic spells, 
Which I to be the power of Israel's God 1150 

Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test, 
Q 



226 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Offering to combat thee, his champion bold, 

With the utmost of his godhead seconded : 

Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow 

Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine. 1155 

Harapha. Presume not on thy God. Whate'er he be, 
Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off 
Quite from his people, and delivered up 
Into thy enemies' hand ; permitted them 
To put out both thine eyes, and fettered send thee 11 60 

Into the common prison, there to grind 
Among the slaves and asses, thy comrades. 
As good for nothing else, no better service 
With those thy boisterous locks ; no worthy match 
For valour to assail, nor by the sword 1 1 65 

Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour, 
But by the barber's razor best subdued. 

Samson. All these indignities, for such they are 
From thine, these evils I deserve and more, 
Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me 1 1 70 

Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon. 
Whose ear is ever open, and his eye 
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant ; 
In confidence whereof I once again 

Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight, 11 75 

By combat to decide whose god is God, 
Thine, or whom I with Israel's sons adore. 

Harapha. Fair honour that thou doest thy God, in trusting 
He will accept thee to defend his cause, 
A murtherer, a revolter, and a robber ! 1 180 

Samson. Tongue-doughty giant, how dost thou prove me 
these? 

Harapha. Is not thy nation subject to our lords? 
Their magistrates confessed it, when they took thee 



SAMSON AGONISTES 22/ 

As a league-breaker, and delivered bound 

Into our hands : for hadst thou not committed 1185 

Notorious murder on those thirty men 

At Ascalon, who never did thee harm, 

Then, hke a robber, stripp'dst them of their robes? 

The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league, 

Went up with armed powers thee only seeking, 11 90 

To others did no violence nor spoil. 

Samson. Among the daughters of the Philistines 
I chose a wife, which argued me no foe, 
And in your city held my nuptial feast ; 
But your ill-meaning politician lords, i^95 

Under pretence of bridal friends and guests. 
Appointed to await me thirty spies, 
Who, threatening cruel death, constrained the bride 
To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, 
That solved the riddle which I had proposed. 1200 

When I perceived all set on enmity. 
As on my enemies, wherever chanced, 
I used hostility, and took their spoil. 
To pay my underminers in their coin. 
My nation was subjected to your lords ! 1205 

It was the force of conquest ; force with force 
Is well ejected when the conquered can. 
But I, a private person, whom my country 
As a league-breaker gave up bound, presumed 
Single rebelHon, and did hostile acts ! 12 10 

I was no private, but a person raised. 
With strength sufficient, and command from Heaven, 
To free my country. If their servile minds 
Me, their deliverer sent, would not receive. 
But to their masters gave me up for nought, 1215 

The unworthier they ; whence to this day they serve. 



228 SAMSON AGONISTES 

I was to do my part from Heaven assigned, 

And had performed it, if my known offence 

Had not disabled me, not all your force. 

These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, 1220 

Though by his blindness maimed for high attempts. 

Who now defies thee thrice to single fight, 

As a petty enterprise of small enforce. 

Harapha. With thee, a man condemned, a slave enrolled, 
Due by the law to capital punishment? 1225 

To fight with thee no man of arms will deign. 

Samso7i. Cam'st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me. 
To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict? 
Come nearer; part not hence so slight informed; 
But take good heed my hand survey not thee. 1230 

Harapha. O Baal-zebub ! can my ears unused 
Hear these dishonours, and not render death? 

Safuson. No man withholds thee ; nothing from thy hand 
Fear I incurable ; bring up thy van ; 
My heels are fettered, but my fist is free. 1235 

Harapha. This insolence other kind of answer fits. 

Sa?nson. Go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee. 
Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast, 
And with one buffet lay thy structure low, 

Or swing thee in the air, then dash thee down, 1240 

To the hazard of thy brains and shattered sides. 

Harapha. By Astaroth, ere long thou shalt lament 
These braveries in irons loaden on thee. 

Chorus. His giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen, 
Stalking with less unconscionable strides, 1245 

And lower looks, but in a sultry chafe. 

Samson. I dread him not, nor all his giant brood, 
Though fame divulge him father of five sons, 
All of gigantic size, Goliah chief. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 229 

Chorus. He will directly to the lords, I fear, 1250 

And with malicious counsel stir them up 
Some way or other yet further to afflict thee. 

Sa?nson. He must allege some cause, and offered fight 
Will not dare mention, lest a question rise 
Whether he durst accept the offer or not ; 1255 

And that he durst not plain enough appeared. 
Much more affliction than already felt 
They cannot well impose, nor I sustain, 
If they intend advantage of my labours, 
The work of many hands, which earns my keeping, 1260 
With no small profit daily to my owners. 
But come what will, my deadhest foe will prove 
My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence ; 
The worst that he can give, to me the best. 
Yet so it may fall out, because their end 1265 

Is hate, not help to me, it may with mine 
Draw their own ruin who attempt the deed. 

Cho7'us. Oh how comely it is, and how reviving 
To the spirits of just men long oppressed. 
When God into the hands of their deliverer 1270 

Puts invincible might, 

To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor. 
The brute and boisterous force of violent men. 
Hardy and industrious to support. 

Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue 1275 

The righteous, and all such as honour truth ! 
He all their ammunition 
And feats of war defeats, 
With plain heroic magnitude of mind 
And celestial vigour armed ; 1280 

Their armories and magazines contemns, 
Renders them useless, while 



230 SAMSON AGONISTES 

With winged expedition 

Swift as the hghtning glance he executes 

His errand on the wicked, who, surprised, 1285 

Lose their defence, distracted and amazed. 

But patience is more oft the exercise 
Of saints, the trial of their fortitude, 
Making them each his own deliverer, 

And victor over all 1290 

That tyranny or fortune can inflict. 
Either of these is in thy lot, 
Samson, with might endued 
Above the sons of men ; but sight bereaved 
May chance to number thee with those 1295 

Whom patience finally must crown. 

This Idol's day hath been to thee no day of rest. 
Labouring thy mind 
More than the working day thy hands. 

And yet perhaps more trouble is behind ; 1300 

For I descry this way 
Some other tending ; in his hand 
A sceptre or quaint staff he bears. 
Comes on amain, speed in his look. 

By his habit I discern him now 1305 

A pubHc officer, and now at hand. 
His message will be short and voluble. 

Officer. Ebrews, the prisoner Samson here I seek. 

Chorus. His manacles remark him ; there he sits. 

Officer. Samson, to thee our lords thus bid me say : 13 10 
This day to Dagon is a solemn feast. 
With sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games ; 
Thy strength they know surpassing human rate. 
And now some public proof thereof require 
To honour this great feast, and great assembly. 13 15 



SAMSON AGONTSTES 23 I 

Rise, therefore, with all speed, and come along, 
Where I will see thee heartened and fresh clad, 
To appear as fits before the illustrious lords. 

Samson. Thou know'st I am an Ebrew ; therefore tell them 
Our Law forbids at their religious rites 1320 

My presence ; for that cause I cannot come. 

Officer. This answer, be assured, will not content them. 

Samson. Have they not sword-players, and every sort 
Of gymnic artists, wrestlers, riders, runners. 
Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics, 1325 

But they must pick me out, with shackles tired, 
And over-laboured at their public mill, 
To make them sport with blind activity? 
Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels, 
On my refusal, to distress me more, "^ZIP 

Or make a game of my calamities? 
Return the way thou cam'st ; I will not come. 

Officer. Regard thyself; this will offend them highly. 

Samson. Myself? my conscience and internal peace. 
Can they think me so broken, so debased 1335 

With corporal servitude, that my mind ever 
Will condescend to such absurd commands? 
Although their drudge, to be their fool or jester. 
And, in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief. 
To show them feats, and play before their god — • 1340 

The worst of all indignities, yet on me 
Joined with extreme contempt ! I will not come. 

Officer. My message was imposed on me with speed, 
Brooks no delay : is this thy resolution ? 

Samson. So take it with what speed thy message needs. 

Officer. I am sorry what this stoutness will produce. 1346 

Samson. Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow indeed. 

Chorus. Consider, Samson ; matters now are strained 



232 SAMSON AGONISTES 

Up to the highth, whether to hold or break. 

He's gone, and who knows how he may report 1350 

Thy words by adding fuel to the flame ? 

Expect another message more imperious, 

More lordly thundering than thou well wilt bear. 

Samson. Shall I abuse this consecrated gift 
Of strength, again returning with my hair 1355 

After my great transgression? so requite 
Favour renewed, and add a greater sin 
By prostituting holy things to idols, 
A Nazarite, in place abominable, 

Vaunting my strength in honour to their Dagon? 1360 

Besides how vile, contemptible, ridiculous. 
What act more execrably unclean, profane ? 

Chorus. Yet with this strength thou serv'st the PhiHstines, 
Idolatrous, uncircumcised, unclean. 

Samso7i. Not in their idol-worship, but by labour 1365 

Honest and lawful to deserve my food 
Of those who have me in their civil power. 

Chorus. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not. 

Samsou. Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds. 
But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon, 1370 

Not dragging? the Philistian lords command : 
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them, 
I do it freely, venturing to displease 
God for the fear of man, and man prefer, 

Set God behind ; which, in his jealousy, 1375 

Shall never, unrepented, find forgiveness. 
Yet that he may dispense with me, or thee. 
Present in temples at idolatrous rites 
For some important cause, thou need'st not doubt. 

Chorus. How thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach. 

Samson. Be of good courage ; I begin to feel 1381 



SAMSON AGONISTES 233 

Some rousing motions in me, which dispose 

To something extraordinary my thoughts. 

I with tliis messenger will go along, 

Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour 1385 

Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite. 

If there be aught of presage in the mind, 

This day will be remarkable in my life 

By some great act, or of my days the last. 

Chorus. In time thou hast resolved : the man returns. 1390 

Officer. Samson, this second message from our lords 
To thee I am bid say : Art thou our slave. 
Our captive, at the public mill our drudge, 
And dar'st thou, at our sending and command, 
Dispute thy coming? Come without delay; 1395 

Or we shall find such engines to assail 
And hamper thee, as thou shalt come of force. 
Though thou wert firmHer fastened than a rock. 

Samson. I could be well content to try their art, 
Which to no few of them would prove pernicious ; 1400 

Yet, knowing their advantages too many. 
Because they shall not trail me through their streets 
Like a wild beast, I am content to go. 
— Masters' commands come with a power resistless 
To such as owe them absolute subjection; 1405 

And for a life who will not change his purpose ? 
So mutable are all the ways of men. — 
Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply 
Scandalous or forbidden in our Law. 

Officer. I praise thy resolution. Doff these links: 14 10 

By this compliance thou wilt win the lords 
To favour, and perhaps to set thee free. 

Samson. Brethren, farewell. Your company along 
I will not wish, lest it perhaps, offend them 



234 SAMSOiV AGONISTES 

To see me girt with friends ; and how the sight 14 15 

Of me as of a common enemy, 

So dreaded once, may now exasperate them, 

I know not. Lords are lordliest in their wine ; 

And the well-feasted priest then soonest fired 

With zeal, if aught religion seem concerned; 1420 

No less the people, on their holy-days, 

Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable. 

Happen what may, of me expect to hear 

Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy 

Our God, our Law, my nation, or myself; 1425 

The last of me or no I cannot warrant. 

Chorus. Go, and the Holy One 
Of Israel be thy guide 

To what may serve his glory best, and spread his name 
Great among the Heathen round ; 1430 

Send thee the Angel of thy birth, to stand 
Fast by thy side, who from thy father's field 
Rode up in flames after his message told 
Of thy conception, and be now a shield 

Of fire ; that Spirit, that first rushed on thee 1435 

In the camp of Dan, 
Be efficacious in thee now at need ! 
For never was from Heaven imparted 
Measure of strength so great to mortal seed, 
As in thy wondrous actions hath been seen. 1440 

But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haste 
With youthful steps? much livelier than ere while 
He seems : supposing here to find his son. 
Or of him bringing to us some glad news ? 

Manoa. Peace with you, brethren ! My inducement hither 
Was not at present here to find my son, 1446 

By order of the lords new parted hence 



SAMSON AGONISTES 235 

To come and play before them at their feast. 

I heard all as I came ; the city rings, 

And numbers thither flock ; I had no will, 1450 

Lest I should see him forced to things unseemly. 

But that which moved my coming now, was chiefly 

To give ye part with me what hope I have 

With good success to work his Hberty. 

Chorus. That hope would much rejoice us to partake 1455 
With thee. Say, reverend sire ; we thirst to hear. 

Manoa. I have attempted, one by one, the lords, 
Either at home, or through the high street passing, 
With supplication prone and father's tears. 
To accept of ransom for my son, their prisoner. 1460 

Some much averse I found, and wondrous harsh. 
Contemptuous, proud, set on revenge and spite ; 
That part most reverenced Dagon and his priests ; 
Others more moderate seeming, but their aim 
Private reward, for which both God and State 1465 

They easily would set to sale ; a third 
More generous far and civil, who confessed 
They had enough revenged, having reduced 
Their foe to misery beneath their fears ; 

The rest was magnanimity to remit, 1470 

If some convenient ransom were proposed. 
What noise or shout was that? it tore the sky. 

Chorus. Doubtless the people shouting to behold 
Their once great dread, captive and blind before them, 
Or at some proof of strength before them shown. 1475 

Manoa. His ransom, if my whole inheritance 
May compass it, shall wiUingly be paid 
And numbered down. Much rather I shall choose 
To live the poorest in my tribe, than richest, 
And he in that calamitous prison left. 1480 



236 SAMSON AGONISTES 

No, I am fixed not to part hence without him. 

For his redemption all my patrimony, 

If need be, I am ready to forgo 

And quit. Not wanting him, I shall want nothing. 

Chorus. Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons ; 1485 
Thou for thy son art bent to lay out all ; 
Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age, 
Thou in old age car'st how to nurse thy son. 
Made older than thy age through eye-sight lost. 

Majioa. It shall be my delight to tend his eyes, 1490 

And view him sitting in the house, ennobled 
With all those high exploits by him achieved. 
And on his shoulders waving down those locks 
That of a nation armed the strength contained. 
And I persuade me, God had not permitted 1495 

His strength again to grow up with his hair 
Garrisoned round about him like a camp 
Of faithful soldiery, were not his purpose 
To use him further yet in some great service — 
Not to sit idle with so great a gift 1500 

Useless, and thence ridiculous, about him. 
And since his strength with eye-sight was not lost, 
God will restore him eye-sight to his strength. 

Chorus. Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain, 
Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon 1505 

Conceived, agreeable to a father's love, 
In both which we, as next, participate. 

Manoa. I know your friendly minds and ... oh, what noise ! 
Mercy of Heaven ! what hideous noise was that? 
Horribly loud, unhke the former shout. 15 10 

Chorus. Noise call you it, or universal groan, 
As if the whole inhabitation perished ! 
Blood, death, and deathful deeds, are in that noise, 



SAMSON AGONISTES 23/ 

Ruin, destruction at the utmost point. 

Manoa. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise. 15 15 
Oh, it continues ; they have slain my son ! 

Chorus, Thy son is rather slaying them ; that outcry 
From slaughter of one foe could not ascend. 

Manoa. Some dismal accident it needs must be. 
What shall we do — stay here or run and see? 1520 

Chorus. Best keep together here, lest, running thither. 
We unawares run into danger's mouth. 
This evil on the Philistines is fallen : 



From whom could else a general cry be heard ? 

The sufferers then will scarce molest us here ; 1525 

From other hands we need not much to fear. 

What if, his eye-sight (for to Israel's God 

Nothing is hard) by miracle restored. 

He now be dealing dole among his foes, 

And over heaps of slaughtered walk his way? 1530 

Manoa. That were a joy presumptuous to be thought. 

Cho7'us. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible 
For his people of old ; what hinders now ? 

Manoa, He can, I know, but doubt to think he will ; 
Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts behef. 1535 

A little stay will bring some notice hither. 

Chorus. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner ; 
For evil news rides post, while good news baits. 
And to our wish I see one hither speeding — 
An Ebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe. 1540 

Messenger. Oh, whither shall I run, or which way fly 
The sight of this so horrid spectacle, 
Which erst my eyes beheld, and yet behold? 
For dire imagination still pursues me. 

But providence or instinct of nature seems, 1545 

Or reason, though disturbed, and scarce consulted, 



238 SAMSON AGONISTES 

To have guided me aright, I know not how, 

To thee first, reverend Manoa, and to these 

My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining. 

As at some distance from the place of horror, 1550 

So in the sad event too much concerned. 

Manoa. The accident was loud, and here before thee 
With rueful cry ; yet what it was we hear not. 
No preface needs, thou seest we long to know. 

Messefiger. It would burst forth ; but I recover breath, 1555 
And sense distract, to know well what I utter. 

Manoa. Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer. 

Messenger. Gaza yet stands, but all her sons are fallen, 
All in a moment overwhelmed and fallen. 

Manoa. Sad ! but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest 
The desolation of a hostile city. 1561 

Messenger. Feed on that first, there may in grief be surfeit. 

Manoa. Relate by whom. 

Messenger. By Samson. 

Manoa. That still lessens 

The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy. 

Messefiger. Ah 1 Manoa, I refrain too suddenly 1565 

To utter what will come at last too soon. 
Lest evil tidings, with too rude irruption 
Hitting thy aged ear, should pierce too deep. 

Manoa. Suspense in news is torture ; speak them out. 1569 

Messenger. Take then the worst in brief: Samson is dead. 

Manoa. The worst indeed ! oh, all my hope's defeated 
To free him hence ! but Death who sets all free 
Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge. 
What windy joy this day had I conceived. 
Hopeful of his delivery, which now proves 1575 

Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring 
Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's frost ! 



SAA/SO.V AG ONI ST ES 239 

Yet, ere I give the reins to grief, say first 

How died he ; death to life is crown or shame. 

All by him fell, thou say'st ; by whom fell he? 1580 

What glorious hand gave Samson his death's wound? 

Messenger. Un wounded of his enemies he fell. 

Manoa. Wearied with slaughter, then, or how? explain. 

Messeftger. By his own hands. 

Manoa. Self-violence? what cause 

Brought him so soon at variance with himself 1585 

Among his foes ? 

Messenge?'. Inevitable cause — 

At once both to destroy and be destroyed. 
The edifice, where all were met to see him, 
Upon their heads and on his own he pulled. 

Manoa. Oh, lastly over-strong against thyself ! 1590 

A dreadful way thou took'st to thy revenge. 
More than enough we know ; but, while things yet 
Are in confusion, give us, if thou canst. 
Eye-witness of what first or last was done. 
Relation more particular and distinct. 1595 

Messenger. Occasions drew me early to this city. 
And, as the gates I entered with sun-rise, 
The morning trumpets festival proclaimed 
Through each high street. Little I had dispatched. 
When all abroad was rumoured that this day 1600 

Samson should be brought forth, to show the people 
Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games. 
I sorrowed at his captive state, but minded 
Not to be absent at that spectacle. 

The building was a spacious theatre, 1605 

Half-round, on two main pillars vaulted high. 
With seats where all the lords, and each degree 
Of sort, might sit in order to behold ; 



240 SAMSON AGONISTES 

The other side was open, where the throng 

On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand ; 1610 

I among these aloof obscurely stood. 

The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice 

Had filled their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and wine. 

When to their sports they turned. Immediately 

Was Samson as a pubhc servant brought, 16 15 

In their state livery clad ; before him pipes 

And timbrels ; on each side went armed guards, 

Both horse and foot ; before him and behind 

Archers and sHngers, cataphracts and spears. 

At sight of him the people with a shout 1620 

Rifted the air, clamouring their god with praise, 

Who had made their dreadful enemy their thrall. 

He, patient but undaunted where they led him, 

Came to the place ; and what was set before him. 

Which without help of eye might be assayed, 1625 

To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still performed 

All with incredible, stupendious force, 

None daring to appear antagonist. 

At length, for intermission sake, they led him 

Between the pillars ; he his guide requested 1630 

(For so from such as nearer stood we heard), 

As over-tired, to let him lean a while 

With both his arms on those two massy pillars. 

That to the arched roof gave main support. 

He unsuspicious led him ; which when Samson 1635 

Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined. 

And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed, 

Or some great matter in his mind revolved. 

At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud : 

* Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed 1640 

I have performed, as reason was, obeying. 



SAMSON AGOmSTES 24 1 

Not without wonder or delight beheld ; 

Now of my own accord such other trial 

I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater, 

As with amaze shall strike all who behold.' 1645 

This uttered, straining all his nerves, he bowed ; 

As with the force of winds and waters pent 

When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars 

With horrible convulsion to and fro 

He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew 1650 

The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder, 

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath. 

Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests, 

Their choice nobiUty and flower, not only 

Of this, but each Philistian city round, 1655 

Met from all parts to solemnize this feast. 

Samson, with these immixed, inevitably 

Pulled down the same destruction on himself; 

The vulgar only scaped, who stood without. 

C horns. Oh, dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious ! 1660 

Living or dying thou hast fulfilled 
The work for which thou wast foretold 
To Israel, and now liest victorious 
Among thy slain self-killed ; 

Not willingly, but tangled in the fold 1665 

Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoined 
Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more 
Than all thy life had slain before. 

Semichorus. While their hearts were jocund and sublime, 
Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine, 1670 

And fat regorged of bulls and goats, 
Chaunting their idol, and preferring 
Before our living Dread, who dwells 
In Silo, his bright sanctuary, 



242 SAMSOiV AGONISTES 

Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent, 1675 

Who hurt their minds, 

And urged them on with mad desire 

To call in haste for their destroyer. 

They, only set on sport and play, 

Unweetingly importuned 1680 

Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. 

So fond are mortal men. 

Fallen into wrath divine, 

As their own ruin on themselves to invite. 

Insensate left, or to sense reprobate, 1685 

And with blindness internal struck. 

Setnichortis. But he, though blind of sight, 
Despised, and thought extinguished quite. 
With inward eyes illuminated. 

His fiery virtue roused 1690 

From under ashes into sudden flame. 
And as an evening dragon came. 
Assailant on the perched roosts 
And nests in order ranged 

Of tame villatic fowl, but as an eagle 1695 

His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. 
So Virtue, given for lost. 
Depressed and overthrown, as seemed. 
Like that self-begotten bird. 

In the Arabian woods embost, 1 700 

That no second knows nor third. 
And lay erewhile a holocaust. 
From out her ashy womb now teemed. 
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most 
When most unactive deemed ; 1 705 

And, though her body die, her fame survives, 
A secular bird, ages of lives. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 243 

Manoa. Come, come ; no time for lamentation now, 
Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit himself 
Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished 1710 

A hfe heroic, on his enemies 

Fully revenged ; hath left them years of mourning, 
And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor 
Through all Philistian bounds ; to Israel 
Honour hath left and freedom, let but them 1715 

Find courage to lay hold on this occasion ; 
To himself and father's house eternal fame ; 
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this 
With God not parted from him, as was feared. 
But favouring and assisting to the end. 1720 

Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt. 
Dispraise, or blame ; nothing but well and fair. 
And what may quiet us in a death so noble. 
Let us go find the body where it hes 1725 

Soaked in his enemies' blood, and from the stream 
With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash oif 
The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while 
(Gaza is not in plight to say us nay). 

Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, 1730 

To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend. 
With silent obsequy and funeral train. 
Home to his father's house. There will I build him 
A monument, and plant it round with shade 
Of laurel ever green, and branching palm, 1 735 

With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled 
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song. 
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort, 
And from his memory inflame their breasts 
To matchless valour, and adventures high ; 1 740 



244 SAMSON AGONISTES 

The virgins also shall, on feastful days, 
Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing 
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice, 
From whence captivity and loss of eyes. 

Chorus. All is best, though we oft doubt, 1745 

What the unsearchable dispose 
Of Highest Wisdom brings about. 
And ever best found in the close. 
Oft He seems to hide his face. 

But unexpectedly returns, 1750 

And to his faithful champion hath in place 
Bore witness gloriously ; whence Gaza mourns, 
And all that band them to resist 
His uncontrollable intent. 

His servants He, with new acquist 1755 

Of true experience from this great event, 
With peace and consolation hath dismissed. 
And calm of mind, all passion spent. 



NOTES 

A Defence of the People of England 

Page 2. Salmasitis (Claudius), Latinized name of Claude de Saumaise, 
b. 1588, d. 1653; regarded in his time, throughout Europe, as the paragon 
of scholarship; engaged, after the execution of Charles I., to defend the 
royal cause against the Commonwealth, which he endeavored to do in his 
Defensio Regia pro Carolo /., addressed to Charles II. In this work he 
defines a king (' if that,' says Milton, ' may be said to be defined which 
he makes infinite ' j 'to be a person in whom the supreme power of the 
kingdom resides, who is answerable to God alone, who may do whatsoever 
pleases him, who is bound by no law.' 

P. 4, 5. single person : Milton himself, who replied to the Eikon Basilike, 
and refuted its ' maudlin sophistry ' in his Eikonoklastes; antagonist of mine : 
Salmasius. 

The Second Defence of the People of England 

P. 7. one eminent above the rest : Salmasius. 

P. 9, 10. columns of Hercules : the mountains on each side of the Straits 
of Gibraltar. It was fabled that they were formerly one mountain, which 
was rent asunder by Hercules. Triptolemus : the fabled inventor of the 
plough and the distributor of grain among men, under favor of Ceres. 

P. 10. the most noble queen of Sweden : Christina, daughter of Gustavus 
Adolphus. 

P. 12. Monstrum horrendum : a. monster horrible, mis-shapen, huge, 
deprived of his eyesight; description of the Cyclops Polyphemus, whose 
one eye was put out by Ulysses. — VirgiPs ^neid, iii. 658. 

P. 14. Tiresias : the blind prophet of Thebes. Apollonius Rhodins : 
poet and rhetorician (B.C. 280-203), author of the Argonautica, a heroic 
poem on the Argonautic expedition to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece. 

P. 14, 15. Timoleon of Corinth: Greek statesman and general, who 
expelled the tyrants from the Greek cities of Sicily, and restored the 
democratic form of government; died blind, 337 B.C. Appius Claudius : 
surnamed Csecus from his bhndness. Roman consul, 307 and 296; 
induced the senate, in his old age, to reject the terms of peace which 
Cineas had proposed on behalf of Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus : king of Epirus 

245 



246 NOTES 

(B.C. 318-272), who waged war against the Romans. Ccccilius Metellus : 
Roman consul, B.C. 251, 249; pontifex maximus for twenty-two years from 
243; lost his sight in 241 while rescuing the Palladium when the temple of 
Vesta was on fire. Dandolo (^Enrico) : b. II07(?); elected Doge in 1192 ; 
d. 1205. He was ninety-six years old when, though blind, he com- 
manded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople, June 17, 1 203. 

* Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! 
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.' 

— Byron's Childe Haroldy Canto iv. St. xii. 

Ziska, or Zizka (John): military chief of the Hussites, b. 1 360(7), 
d. 1424; his real name was Trocznow; he lost an eye in battle, and was 
thence called Ziska, i.e. one-eyed ; lost his other eye from an arrow 
at the siege of Rubi, but his blindness did not prevent his continuing the 
war against ecclesiastical tyranny. Jej'ofue Zanchius (Girolamo Zanchi), 
Italian Protestant theologian, b. 1516, d. 1590 ; was canon regular of the 
Lateran when he became a Protestant ; professor of theology and philoso- 
phy, University of Strasburg, 1 553-1563 ; professor of theology. University 
of Heidelberg, 1568-1576. 

P. 16. yEsculapius : the god of medicine. Epidatirus (now Epi- 
dauro) : chief seat of the worship of iEsculapius ; the son of Thetis : 
Achilles, the hero of the lUad. I have substituted the Earl of Derby's 
translation of the lines which follow from the Iliad, for that given by 
Robert Fellowes. 

P. 18. Prytanetim : * a public building in the towns of Greece, where 
the Prytanes (chief magistrates in the states) assembled and took their 
meals together, and where those who had deserved well of their country 
were maintained during life.' 

P. 19, 20. born in London: 9th of December, 1608; grafuviar-school : 
St. Paul's, notable among the classical seminaries then in London. The 
head-master was a Mr. Alexander Gill, Sr., and the sub-master, or usher, 
Mr. Alexander Gill, Jr.; with the latter Milton afterward maintained an 
intimate friendship. 

P. 20. 0« ;;/>'yiz/^-?r' J <fj/a/^.- at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Henry 
Wotton : at this time Provost of Eton. His letter to Milton is dated 
13 April, 1638. In the concluding paragraph. Sir Henry writes: 'At 
Sienna I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman 
courtier in dangerous times, ... at my departure toward Rome (which 
had been the centre of his experience) I had won confidence enough to 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 247 

beg his advice, how I might carry myself securely there, without offence 
of others, or of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo viio (says he), 
/ pensieri stretti, &^ il viso sciolto : that is, your thoughts close and your 
countenance loose, will go safely over the whole world. Of which 
Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no 
commentary ; and therefore. Sir, I will commit you with it to the best 
of all securities, God's dear love, remaining your friend as much at com- 
mand as any of longer date.' Milton was certainly the last man in the 
world to make such a prudential, or rather crafty, maxim his rule of con- 
duct, even in such a country as Italy then was. He has stated his own 
rule further on in this extract. Thomas Scudamore : miswritten for John 
(^Massori). 

P. 21. Jacopo Gaddi : a prominent and influential literary man of 
Florence, member of the Florentine Academy, author of poems, historical 
essays, etc., in Latin and in Italian. Carlo Dati : his full name was 
Carlo Ruberto Dati ; only in his 19th year when Milton visited Florence ; 
was afterwards one of the most distinguished of the Florentine men of 
letters and academicians ; became strongly attached to Milton, and corre- 
sponded with him after his return to England ; author of ' Vite de' Pittori 
Antichi ' (Lives of the Ancient Painters) and numerous other works. 

P. 21. Frescobaldi (^Pieiro) : a Florentine academician. Coltellini 
{Agostino) : a Florentine advocate ; founder of an academy under the 
name of the Apatisti (the Indifferents). 'Such were the attractions of 
this academy, and so energetic was Coltellini in its behalf, that within ten 
or twenty years after its foundation it had a fame among the Italian 
academies equal, in some respects, to that of the first and oldest, and 
counted among its members not only all the eminent Florentines, but most 
of the distinguished literati of Italy, besides cardinals, Italian princes and 
dukes, many foreign nobles and scholars, and at least one pope.' — Masson. 
BonfJiattei, or Buommattei (^Benedetto') : an eminent member of various 
Florentine and other academies ; author of various works, among them a 
commentary on parts of Dante, and a standard treatise, Delia Lingua 
Toscana ; by profession a priest. Chimentelli ( Valeria') : a priest ; pro- 
fessor of Greek, and then of Eloquence and Politics, in Pisa ; author of an 
archaeological work, entitled A/armor Pisanum. Francini (^Antonio) : 
Florentine academician and poet. Lucas Holstenius (in the vernacular, 
Lukas Holste, or Holsten), secretary to Cardinal Barberini, and one of the 
librarians of the Vatican. Manso : author of a Life of Tasso, 1 619. Milton, 
just before leaving Naples, addressed to him his Latin poem, Mansus. 



248 NOTES 

P. 22. so little reserve on matters of religion : here it appears that he 
did not make Sir Henry Wotton's prudential maxim his rule of conduct. 

P. 22, 23. the slandering More (Lat. Morus), Alexander: a Reformed 
minister, then resident in Holland, and at one time a friend of Salmasms. 
He had formerly been Professor of Greek in the University of Geneva. 
The real author of the Regii Sanguinis Clamor was the Rev. Dr. Peter 
Du Moulin, the younger, made, 1660, a prebendary of Canterbury. More 
was, indeed, the publisher of the book, the corrector of the press, and 
author of the dedicatory preface in the printer's name, to Charles II. 
Milton fully believed when he wrote the Second Defence that More was 
the author of the R. S. C, having received convincing assurances that he 
was. Diodati (Dr. Jean, or Giovanni), uncle of Milton's friend, Carolo 
Diodati. He made the Italian translation of the Scriptures, known as 
Diodati's Bible, pubhshed in 1607. at the time when Charles^ etc.: 
Milton's return to England was not, as he himself (by a slip of memory, 
no doubt) states, * at the time when Charles, having broken the peace with 
the Scots, was renewing the second of those wars named Episcopal,' but 
exactly a twelvemonth previous to that time, and about eight months 
before the meeting of the Short Parliament. — Keightley. 

P. 24. two books to a friend : *0f Reformation in England, and the 
causes that hitherto have hindered it. 1641.' two bishops: Dr. Joseph 
Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Exeter, afterward Bishop of Norwich ; and 
Dr. James Usher (i 580-1 656), Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of 
Ireland. Concerning Prelatical Episcopacy : the full title is, 'Of prelatical 
episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the apostolical times, by 
virtue of those testimonies which are alleged to that purpose in some late 
treatises; one whereof goes under the name of James, Archbishop of 
Armagh. 1641.' Concerning the mode of ecclesiastical government : 'The 
reason of church government urged against prelaty. 1641.' 

P. 24. Animadversions : ' Animadversions upon the remonstrant's 
defence against Smectymnuus. 1641.' 

P. 24. ^/<?/(?g7 .•* An apology for Smectymnuus.' 1642. The pamphlet 
by Smectymnuus was published with the following title, which is suffi- 
ciently descriptive of its character : ' An Answer to a Book entituled " An 
Humble Remonstrance" [by Bishop Hall], in which the originall of 
Liturgy [and] Episcopacy is discussed and quaeres propounded concerning 
both, the parity of Bishops and Presbyters in Scripture demonstrated, the 
occasion of their unparity in Antiquity discovered, the disparity of the 
ancient and our modern Bishops manifested, the antiquity of Ruling Elders 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 249 

in the Church vindicated, the Prelaticall Church bounded : Written by 
Smectymnuus.' 1 641. The pamphlet was the joint production of five 
Presbyterian clergymen, Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas 
Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, but written for the 
most part by Thomas Young, Milton's former tutor. The name Smec- 
tymnuus was made up from the several authors' initials: S. M., E. C, 
T. Y., M. N., U. U. (for W.) S. 

P. 24. the domestic species: the titles of the pamphlets on marriage 
and divorce are: 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' 1643, 1644; 
'The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce,' 1644; 'Tetrachor- 
don: expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture which treat of 
marriage, or nullities in marriage,' 1644; ' Colasterion : a reply to a name- 
less answer against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' 1645. 

P. 25. Selden (^John), 1584-1654, celebrated English lawyer, statesman, 
and political writer. His 'Table Talk' was long famous, 'being his sense 
of various matters of weight and high consequence, relating especially to 
religion and state.' 

P. 25. art inferior at home : many passages in Milton's works, poetical 
and prose, indicate, on his part, an estimate of woman which may be at- 
tributed, in some measure, at least, to his unfortunate first marriage. His 
own opinions of what should be the relation of wife to husband he, no 
doubt, expressed in the following passages in the ' Paradise Lost,' Book iv. 
635-638, X. 145-156, xi. 287-292, 629-636; and in the 'Samson Ago- 
nistes,' 1053-1060. But no one can read the several treatises on Divorce 
without being impressed with the loftiness of Milton's ideal of marriage, 
and his sense of the sacred duties appertaining thereto. The only true 
marriage with him was the union of souls, as well as of bodies, souls 
whom God hath joined together (Matt. xix. 6, Mark x. 9), not the priest 
nor the magistrate. 

P. 25. the principles of education : ' Of Education. To Master Samuel 
Hartlib.' 1644. Hartlib was nominally a merchant in London, a foreigner 
by birth, the son of a Polish merchant of German extraction, settled in 
Elbing, in Prussia, whose wife was the daughter of a wealthy English 
merchant of Dantzic. He was a reformer and philanthropist, and an 
advocate of the views of the educational reformer, Comenius. 

P. 25. ^Areopagitica : a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, 
to the Parliament of England.' 1644. 

P. 26. what might lazufully be done against tyrants : in his pamphlet 
entitled, ' The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates : proving that it is lawfu^, 



250 NOTES 

and hath been held so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call 
to account a tyrant or wicked king, and, after due conviction, to depose, 
and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected, or denied 
to do it ; and that they who of late so much blame deposing are the men 
that did it themselves. The author J. M. 1649.' 

P. 27. history of my country : 'The History of Britain; that part espe- 
cially now called England. From the first traditional beginning continued 
to the Norman Conquest.' 

P. 27. I had already finished four books: z,«f. in 1648; the work was not 
pubhshed till 1670. It contained the fine portrait of Milton, by "William 
Faithorne, for which he sat in his 62d year. 

P. 27. A book . . . ascribed to the king : ten days after the king's death, 
was published (9 Feb. 1649), 'Et'/ccbf BatrtXtK?;: The True Portraicture of 
His Sacred Majestic in his Solitudes and Sufferings. — Rom. viii. More than 
co7iquerour, &c. — Bona agere et mala pati Regium est. — MDCXLVHL' 
The book professed to be the king's own production, and Milton answered 
it as such, tho' it appears he had his suspicions as to its authorship. It 
was universally regarded, at the time, as the king's; but it was before long 
well known (though the controversy as to the authorship was long after 
kept up) to have been written by Dr. John Gauden, Rector of Bocking, 
and, after the Restoration, Bishop of Exeter, and, a short time before his 
death, Bishop of Worcester. Milton's reply, published 6th of Oct., 1649, 
is entitled 'EIKONOKAA'STHS in Answer To a Book Intitl'd E'IKfi'N 
BA2IAIKH', The Portrature of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and 
Sufferings. The Author I. M. 

Prov. xxviii. 15, 16, 17. 

15. As a roaring Lyon, and a ranging Beare, so is a wicked Ruler over 
the poor people. 

16. The Prince that wanteth understanding, is also a great oppressor; 
but he that hateth covetousnesse shall prolong his dayes. 

17. A man that doth violence to the blood of any person, shall fly to 
the pit, let no man stay him. 

Salust. Conjurat. Catilin. 
Regium imperium, quod initio, conservandoe libertatis, atque augendae 
reipub, causa fuerat, in superbiam, dominationemque se convertit. 

Regibus boni, quam mali, suspectiores sunt ; semperque his aHena virtu.5 
formidolosa est. 

Quidlibet impune facere, hoc scilicet regium est. 
Published by Authority. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 25 I 

London, Printed by Matthew Simmons, next dore to the gilded Lyon in 
Aldersgate street. 1649.' 

P. 27. Sahnasiiis then appeared : that is, with his Defensio Regia pro 
Carolo I. 

To Charles Diodati 

P. 28. Chester'' s Dee : the old city of Chester is situated on the Dee 
(Lat, Deva.). 

P. 28. Vej'givian wave (Lat. Vergivium saliini) : the Irish Sea. 

P. 28. // is not my care to revisit the reedy Cam, etc. : this was the 
period of his rustication from Christ's College, Cambridge, due, it seems, to 
some difficulty which Milton had with his tutor, Mr. Chappell. 

P. 28. the tearful exile in the Pontic territory : Ovid, who was rele- 
gated (rather than exiled) to Tomi, a town on the Euxine. 

P. 28. Maro : the Latin poet, Publius Virgilius Maro. 

P. 29. or the unhappy boy . . . or the fierce avenger : as Masson 
suggests, the allusions here may be to Shakespeare's Romeo and the 
Ghost in Hamlet. 

P. 29. the house of Pe lops, etc. : subjects of the principal Greek tragedies. 

P. 29. the arms of living Pelops : an allusion to the ivory shoulder of 
Pelops, by which, when he was restored to life after having been served 
up at a feast of the gods, given by his father Tantalus, the shoulder con- 
sumed by Ceres was replaced. 

P. 30. thy 07vn flower : the anemone into which Adonis was turned by 
Venus, after his dying of a wound received from a wild boar during the chase. 

P. 30. alternate measures : the alternate hexameters and pentameters 
of the Elegy. 

To Alexander Gill, Jr. (^Familiar Letters, No. IIL) 

P. 30. Alexander Gill, Jr. : Gill was Milton's tutor in St. Paul's 
School, of which his father, Alexander Gill, was head-master. Milton was 
sent to this school in his twelfth year (1620), and remained there till his 
seventeenth year (1625). He was entered very soon after at Christ's 
College, Cambridge, beginning residence in the Easter term of 1625. 

To Thomas Young. {Familiar Letters, No. IV.) 

P. 31. Thomas Young: Young had been Milton's tutor before 
he entered St. Paul's School, and later; he was one of the authors of the 
Smectymnuan pamphlet; was appointed Master of Jesus College, Cam- 
bridge, in 1644. 



252 NOTES 

P. 31. Stoa of the Iceni (Lat. Stoani Icetiorum) : a pun for Stowmarket 
in Suffolk, the Iceni having been the inhabitants of the parts of Roman 
Britain corresponding to Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, etc. — Masson. Their 
queen was Boadicea, who led their revolt against the Romans. 

P. 31. Zeno : Greek philosopher (about 358-260 B.C.), father of the 
Stoic philosophy, so called from his teaching in the Stoa Poecile^ in Athens, 
in which were the frescoes of Polygnotus (about 480-430 B.C.). 

P. 31. Serranus : an agnomen, or fourth name, given to L. Quinctius 
Cincinnatus; Roman consul 460 B.C.; in 458 called from the plough to the 
dictatorship, whence called by Florus, Dictator ab aratro ; the agnomen 
is said to have been derived from serere, to sow; *Quis te, magne Cato, 
tacitum, aut te, Cosse, relinquat? . . . vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem ' 
(Who can leave thee unmentioned, great Cato, or thee, Cossus? . . . 
or thee, Serranus, sowing in the furrow). — y^neid, vi. 844. 

P. 31. Curius : M'. Curius Dentatus, noted for his fortitude and 
frugality; consul B.C. 290; a second time 275, when he defeated Pyrrhus, 
king of Epirus; consul a third time, 274; afterward retired to his small 
farm, which he cultivated himself. 

To Charles Diodati, making a Stay in the Country 

P. 32. Erato: the muse of erotic poetry. 

P. 32. the fierce dog: Cerberus. 

P. 32. the Samian master : Pythagoras, who was a native of Samos. 

P. 32. Tiresias : the Theban prophet, deprived of sight by Juno; 
Jupiter, in compensation, bestowed upon him the power of prophecy. 

P. 32. Theban Linus : the singer and philosopher. 

P. 32. Calchas the exile : a famous soothsayer, who accompanied the 
Greeks to Troy. 

P. 32. Orpheus : the fabulous Thracian poet and musician. 

P. 32. Circe : See Comus, 50-53. 

P. 33. the heavenly birth of the King of Peace : his ode On the Morn- 
ing of Chris fs Nativity, composed on and just after Christmas, 1629. 

Ad Patrem 

P. 35. I. Pierid's: used for Pierian, from Pierus, a mountain of 
Thessaly sacred to the muses. 

P. 36. 18. Clio: the Muse of History, 'inasmuch,' says Masson, 'as 
what he is to say about his Father is strictly true.' 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 253 

P. 36. 22. Promethean fire : the fire which Prometheus brought down 
from heaven. 

P. 37. 44. Ophiuchus: i.e. a serpent holder (ci0ts + e^eii') ; a con- 
stellation in the northern hemisphere, the outline of which is imagined to 
be a man holding a serpent; called also Anguitenens and Serpentarius, 
which have the same meaning; Ophiuchus is the translator's word; the 
original is sibila serpens, the hissing serpent. 

P. 37. 45. Orion: a constellation with sword, belt, and club; 'Orion 
arm'd.' — P. Z., i. 305. 

P. 37. 50. Lycens : an epithet of Bacchus as the deliverer from care 
(Gk. \va.lo%). 

P- 2)1' 53* pf'oposed : set forth. 

P. 37. 55. to imitation: i.e. for imitation, to be imitated, i.e. the 
character of heroes and their deeds. 

P. 38. 92. Streams Aonian : so called as if the resort of the muses. 

P. 39. 120. the boy : Phaethon. 

P, 40. 141-148. Ye too, . . . Diy voluntary 7iumbers : it does not 
seem to me improbable that these six lines [i 15-120 of the original] were 
added to the poem just before its publication in the volume of 1645. The 
phrase ^juvenilia carmina ' seems to refer to that volume as containing 
this piece among others. Anyhow, it was a beautiful ending and pro- 
phetic. — Masson. 

An English Letter to a Friend 

P. 40. English letter to a friend : this letter of which there are two 
undated drafts in Milton's handwriting in the Library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, must have been written in 1632 or 1633. In the second draft 
(which is given in the text), Milton is content, for the first few sentences, 
with simply correcting the language of the first; but in the remaining 
portion he throws the first draft all but entirely aside, and rewrites the 
same meaning more at large in a series of new sentences. Evidently he 
took pains with the letter. — Masson. 

P. 41. tale of Latmus : i.e. of Endymion's sleeping upon Mount 
Latmus, and of his being visited by Selene (the moon). 

P. 42. 5. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth: i.e. he 
appears younger than he really is. In his Second Defence, he says, * though 
I am more than forty years old, there is scarcely any one to whom I do not 
appear ten years younger than I am.' 

P. 42. 8. timely-happy : happy, or fortunate, in the matter of inward 
ripeness. 



254 NOTES 

P. 42. 10. it: * inward ripeness.' 

P. 42. it shall be still : Milton very early regarded himself as dedi- 
cated to the performance of some great work for which he had to make 
adequate preparation, in the way of building himself up; even: equal, in 
proportion to, in conformity with. 

P. 43. Your true and imfeigned friend, etc. : see penultimate sen- 
tence of the passage given, p. 65, from 'The Reason of Church Govern- 
ment urged against Prelaty.' 

To Alexander Gill, Jr. {^Familiar Letters, No. V.) 

P. 43. this ode : Psalm cxiv. 

To Charles Diodati. {Familiar Letters, No. VI.) 

P. 44. To Charles Diodati : Milton's schoolfellow at St. Paul's, and 
his dearest friend; he died in August, 1638, while Milton was on his Con- 
tinental tour; on his return he wrote the In niemoriam poem, Epitaphiiim 
Damonis. 

To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence. (^Familiar Letters, No. VIII.j 

P. 46. To Benedetto Bonmattei : mentioned by Milton among his 

Florentine friends, in the autobiographical passage in the Second Defence; 

see note, p. 247. 

Alansus 

P. 47. oiir native kings : the ancient kings of Britain. 

P. 47. stirring tvars even under the earth : King Arthur, after his 
death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie, 
or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence he was to return 
into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and 
reestablish his throne. He was, therefore, etiani movens bella sub terris, 
still meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of his attachment to 
this subject was not entirely suppressed; it produced his History of Bri- 
tain. By the expression revocabo in carmina, the poet means, that these 
ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should 
now again be celebrated in verse. — VVarton. Warton renders bella 
moventem [v. 81 of the Latin] meditating zvars, but that is not the true 
sense; it is waging wars, and Arthur is represented as so employed in 
Fairy-land in the romances. — Keightley. 

P. 47. Paphian myrtle: the myrtle was sacred to Venus; Paphos 
was an ancient city of Cyprus, where was a temple of Venus. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 255 

Areopagitica 

P. 48. Galileo : b. 1564, d. 1642; he was seventy-four years old when 
Milton visited him in 1638; whether he was actually imprisoned at the 
time is somevsfhat uncertain; he may have been, as Hales suggests, in 
libera custodia, i.e. ' only kept under a certain restraint, as that he should 
not move away from a specified neighborhood, or perhaps a special house. 

P. 48. tiever be forgotten by any revolution of time : i.e. as Hales 
explains, caused to be forgotten. 

P. 48. ot/ier parts : i.e. of the world. 

P. 48. in time of parliament : there was no parliament assembled 
from 1629 to 1640. 

P. 48. without envy : without exciting any odium against me. — Hales. 

P. 48. he whom an honest qucestorship : Cicero, 75 B.C. 

P. 48. Verres: pro-pr£etor in Sicily, 73-71 B.C. Cicero's Verrine 
orations were directed against his extortions and exactions. 

To Lucas LLolstenius. (^Familiar Letters, No. IX.) 

P. 49. Lucas LLolstenius : see note, p. 21. 

P. 49. Alexander Cherubini : Roman friend of Milton, ' known in 
his lifetime as a prodigy of erudition, though he died at the early age of 
twenty-eight.' 

P. 49. Vif-giTs ' penitus convalle virejitf : Virgil's 'souls enclosed 
withm a verdant valley, and about to go to the upper light.' 

P. 49. Cardinal Francesco Barberini : b. 1597, d. 1679; librarian of 
the Vatican, and founder of the Barberini Library. 

Ep itaph i u m Damo n is 
P. 50. In the British legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth and others, the 
mythical Brutus, before arriving in Britain with his Trojans, marries Imogen, 
daughter of the Grecian king Pandrasus; Brennus and Belinus are two 
legendary British princes of a much later. age, sons of King Dunwallo 
Molmutius; Arvirach or Arviragus, son of Cunobeline, or Cymbeline, 
belongs to the time of the Roman conquest of Britain; the " Armorican 
settlers " are the Britons who removed to the French coast of Armonica to 
avoid the invading Saxons; Uther Pendragon, Igraine, Gorlois, Merlin, 
and Arthur are familiar names of the Arthurian romances. — ALasson. 

Of Beforfuation in England 
P. 52. their damned designs : the restoration of Papacy and ecclesias- 
tical despotism. 



256 NOTES 

P. 53. antichristian thraldom : he would seem to allude to the in- 
vasions of England by the Romans, Saxons, Danes (twice), and Normans, 
and the War of the Roses, followed by the partial reformation under Henry 
N\\\. — Keightley. 

P. 53. I'hule : some undetermined island or other land, regarded as 
the northernmost part of the earth; called in Latin Uliivia Thule ; often 
used metaphorically for an extreme limit. 

P. 53. that horrible and dajtmed blast: Keightley understands this as 
referring to the Gunpowder plot. 

P. 53. that sad intelligencing tyrant : Philip IV., King of Spain from 
1621 to 1665. 

P. 53. fnines of Ophir : used in a general sense for gold mines. 

P. 53. his naval ruins : an allusion to the destruction of the Spanish 
armada, in 1588, in the reign of his grandfather, Philip 11. 

P. 54. in this land : when Milton wrote this, he must still have been 
meditating a poem to be based on British history. 

Animadversions upon the Remonstrant- s Defence^ etc. 

P. 56. and thou standing at the door : see introductory remarks on 
Lycidas. 

The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty 

P, 57. Slothful, and ever to be set light by: thou slothful one, and 
ever, etc. 

P. 57. infancy : not speaking. 

P. 58. preventive : going before, forecasting, anticipative. 

P. 58. equal : impartial, equitable; Lat. cequalis. 

P. 58. the elegant and learned reader : him only Milton addressed, 
not the common reader. He was no demagogue. 

P. 58. anything elaborately composed: he had his meditated great 
work in mind. 

P. 59. another task : poetical composition. 

P. 59. empyreal conceit : lofty conceit of himself. 

P. 59. envy : odium; Lat. invidia, 

P. 60. Ariosto (Lodovico) : Italian poet; b. 1474, d. 1533; author of 
the Orlando Furioso. 

P. 60. Bembo {Pietro) : b. 1470, d. 1547; secretary to Pope Leo X.; 
Cardinal, 1539; famous as a Latin scholar. 

P. 60. wits : geniuses. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 257 

P. 61. Tasso (^Torquato) \ Italian poet; b, 1544,(1. 1595; author of 
the Gerusalemnie Liber ata (Jerusalem Delivered). 

P, 61. a prince of Italy : Alfonso II., Duke of Ferrara? 

P. 61. Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels : the subject of Tasso's 
Jerusalem Delivered; Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the first crusade; 
b. about 1058, d. iioo. 

P. 61. Belisaritis : a celebrated general, in the reign of Justinian; 
b. about 505 A.D., d. 565. 

P. 61. Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) : b. 742, d. 814; Em- 
peror of the West and King of the Franks, 

P. 61. doctrinal and exemplary : instructive and serving for example. 

P. 61. Origen: Christian Father, of Alexandria (185-254). 

P. 61. Parens {David): b. 1548, d. 1622; a Calvinist theologian, 
Professor of Theology, University of Heidelberg. 

P, 62. Pindarus: Greek lyric poet, about 522-442 B.C. 

P. 62. Callimachus : Greek poet and grammarian, about 310-235 B.C. 

P. 62. most an end : ' almost uninterruptedly, almost always, mostly, 
for the most part.' — Murray's New English Dictionary, s.v. ' an end.' 
The phrase occurs again in Chap. III. Book II. of this same pamphlet : 
' the patients, which most an end are brought into his [the civil magis- 
trate's] hospital, are such as are far gone,' etc. Vol. II. p. 491, of the 
Bohn ed. of the P. W. 

P. 63. demean : conduct ; O. Fr. demener. 

P. 63. such (^sports, etc.) as were authorized a while since ; i.e. in the 
Book of Sports. Proclamation allowing Sunday sports, issued by James I. 

P. 63. paneguries : same as panegyrics. 

P. 64. Siren daughters : the Muses, daughters of Memory or Mnemo- 
syne. 

P. 65. gentle apprehension : a refined faculty of conception or per- 
ception. 

Apology for Smectymnuus 

P. 66. Solon : Athenian statesman and lawgiver, about 638-558 B.C. 
' According to Suidas it was a law of Solon that he who stood neuter in 
any public sedition, should be declared anixos, infamous.' 

P. 66. doubted : hesitated; or, perhaps, in the sense of feared. 

P. 66. most nominated : most frequently named, most prominent. 

P. 66, 67. my certain account : the account which I shall certainly 
have to render. 



258 NOTES 

P. 67. tired out almost a whole youth : see the extract given from 
• The Reason of Church Government urged agamst Prelaty.' 

P. 67. this modest confuter : Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, after- 
ward of Norwich; the reference is to his ' Modest Confutation ' of Milton's 
' Animadversions.' 

P. 69. Animadversions : 'A. upon the Remonstrant's Defence against 
Smectymnuus.' 1641. 

P. 69. devised : described, represented. 

P. 70. conversation : in New^ Testament sense, mode or way of life, 
conduct, deportment {auaarpocp-n). 

P. 70. apology : defence, vindication. 

P. 71, prepense: inclined, disposed. 

P. 71. that place : the University. 

P. 71. to obtain with me : prevail, succeed with me, to get the better 
of. 

P. 71. both she or her sister : Cambridge or Oxford University; 'both' 
requires * and ' ; ' or ' requires ' either.' 

P. 71. that suburb sink: the 'pretty garden-house in Aldersgate 
street,' as his nephew, Edward Phillips styles it, to which he removed from 
'his lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard,' in 1640, and where he was living 
when he wrote his ' Apology for Smectymnuus.' 

P. 72. / never greatly adtnired, so now much less : in 'The Reason of 
Church Government urged against Prelaty' ('The Conclusion. The mis- 
chief that Prelaty does in the State'), Milton writes: 'The service of God, 
who is truth, her ( Prelaty 's) liturgy confesses to be perfect freedom; but 
her works and her opinions declare that the service of prelaty is perfect 
slavery, and by consequence perfect falsehood. Which makes me wonder 
much that many of the gentry, studious men as I hear, should engage 
themselves to write and speak publicly in her defence; but that I believe 
their honest and ingenuous natures coming to the universities to store them- 
selves with good and solid learning, and there unfortunately fed with noth- 
ing else but the scragged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable 
sophistry, were sent home again with such a scholastic bur in their 
throats, as hath stopped and hindered all true and generous philosophy 
from entering, cracked their voices for ever with metaphysical gargarisms, 
and hath made them admire a sort of formal outside men prelatically 
addicted, whose unchastened and unwrought minds were never yet initiated 
or subdued under the true lore of religion or moral virtue, which two are 
the best and greatest points of learning; but either slightly trained up in a 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 259 

kind of hypocritical and hackney course of Uterature to get their Hving by, 
and dazzle the ignorant, or else fondly over-studied in useless controver- 
sies, except those which they use with all the specious and delusive 
subtlety they are able, to defend their prelatical Sparta.' 

P. 72. wisses : knows. 

P. 72. the bird that first rouses : the lark; see ' L' Allegro,' 41 et sea. 

P. 72. old cloaks, false beards, night-walkers, and salt lotion : the 
passage alluded to in the * Animadversions,' is the following : ' We know 
where the shoe wrings you, you fret and are galled at the quick; and oh 
what a death it is to the prelates to be thus unvisarded, thus uncased, to 
have the periwigs plucked off, that cover your baldness, your inside naked- 
ness thrown open to public view ! The Romans had a time, once every 
year, when their slaves might freely speak their minds; it were hard if the 
free-born people of England, with whom the voice of truth for these many 
years, even against the proverb, hath not been heard but in corners, after 
all your monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes, your gags and 
snaffles, your proud Imprimaturs not to be obtained without the shallow 
surview, but not shallow hand of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and 
illiterate chaplain; when liberty of speaking, than which nothing is more 
sweet to man, was girded and strait-laced almost to a brokenwinded 
phthisic, if now, at a good time, our time of parliament, the very jubilee 
and resurrection of the state, if now the concealed, the aggrieved, and 
long-persecuted truth, could not be suffered to speak; and though she 
burst out with some efficacy of words, could not be excused after such an 
injurious strangle of silence, nor avoid the censure of Hbelling, it were 
hard, it were something pinching in a kingdom of free spirits. Some 
princes, and great statists, have thought it a prime piece of necessary 
policy, to thrust themselves under disguise into a popular throng, to stand 
the night long under eaves of houses, and low windows, that they might 
hear everywhere the utterances of private breasts, and amongst them Hnd 
out the precious gem of truth, as amongst the numberless pebbles of the 
shore; whereby they might be the abler to discover, and avoid, that deceit- 
ful and close-couched evil of flattery, that ever attends them, and misleads 
them, and might skilfully know how to apply the several redresses to ea^h 
malady of state, without trusting the disloyal information of parasites and 
sycophants; whereas now this permission of free writing, were there no 
good else in it, yet at some time thus licensed, is such an unripping, such 
an anatomy of the shyest and tenderest particular truths, as makes not 
only the whole nation in many points the wiser, but also presents and car- 



260 NOTES 

ries home to princes, men most remote from vulgar concourse, such a full 
insight of every lurking evil, or restrained good among the commons, as 
that they shall not need hereafter, in old cloaks and false beards, to stand 
to the courtesy of a night-walking cudgeller for eaves-dropping, not to 
accept quietly as a perfume, the overhead emptying of some salt lotion. 
Who could be angry, therefore, but those that are guilty, with these free- 
spoken and plain-hearted men, that are the eyes of their country, and the 
prospective glasses of their prince? But these are the nettlers, these are 
the blabbing books that tell, though not half your fellows' feats. You love 
toothless satires; let me inform you, a toothless satire is as improper as a 
toothed sleekstone, and as bullish.' 

P. 73. aniistrophon : reasoning turned upon an opponent. 

P. 73. mime : a kind of buffoon play, in which real persons and 
events were ridiculously mimicked and represented. 

P. 73. Afundus alter et idem (another world and the same) : a satire 
by Bishop Hall. 

P. 73. Cephalus: son of Mercury (Hermes), carried off by Aurora 
(Eos). 

P. 73. Hylas : accompanied Hercules in the Argonautic expedition. 
His beauty excited the love of the Naiads, as he went to draw water from 
a fountain, on the coast of Mysia, and he was drawn by them into the 
water, and never again seen. 

P. 73. Viraginea : the land of viragoes. 

P. 73. Aphrodisia : the land of Aphrodite (Venus). 

P. 73. Desvergonia : the land of shamelessness. Ital. vergona, shame, 
infamy. 

P. 73. hearsay : the hearing of, knowing about. 

P. 73. tire: head-dress. 

P. 73. those in next aptitude to divinity : divinity students. 

P. 73. Trinculoes : Trinculo is the name of a jester in Shakespeare's 
'Tempest'; or, according to a note in Johnson's 'Life of Milton,' signed 
R., referred to by J. A. St. John, 'by the mention of this name he evi- 
dently refers to " Albemazor," acted at Cambridge in 1614.' 

P. 73. mademoiselles : ladies' maids. 

P. 73. Atticism : because he is here imitating a well-known passage 
in Demosthenes's speech against ^^schines. — Keightley. 

P. 74. for me : so far as I'm concerned. 

P. 74. direipoKaXia : ignorance of the beautiful, want of taste or sen- 
sibility (Liddell and Scott). 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 26 1 

P. 75. elegiac poets, rvhereof the schools are not scarce : i.e. they are 
much read in the schools, 

P. 75. numerous: in poetic numbers; * in prose or numerous verse.' 

P. 75. For that : because. — P. L.,v. 150. 

P. 75. severe . serious. 

P. 76. the tzvo famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura : Dante and 
Petrarch. 

P. 76. though itot in the title-page : an allusion to his opponent's ' A 
Modest Confutation.' 

P. 78. Corinthian : licentious, Corinth having been noted for its 
licentiousness. 

P. 78. the precepts of the Christian religion : J. A. St. John quotes 
from Symmons's * Life of Milton ' : ' It was at this early period of his life, 
as we may confidently conjecture, that he imbibed that spirit of devotion 
which actuated his bosom to his latest moment upon earth : and we need 
not extend our search beyond the limits of his own house for the fountam 
from which the living influence was derived.' 

P. 78. had been : i.e. might have been. 

P. 79. sleekstone : a smoothing stone; a toothed sleekstone would 
fail of its purpose as much as a toothless satire. 

P. 79. this champion from behind the arras : probably an allusion to 
Polonius, who, in the closet scene (A. III. S. iv.), conceals himself behind 
the arras to overhear the interview between Hamlet and his mother. 

P. So. Socrates: surnamed Scholasticus; a Greek ecclesiastical histo- 
rian; b. about 379, d. after 440; author of a 'History of the Church from 
306 to 439 A.D.' 

P. 81. St. Martin: there are two saints of the name; which one is 
alluded to is uncertain, but probably Bishop of Tours, 4th century. 

P. 81. Gregory Nazianzen : a Greek father, surnamed the Theologian ; 
b. about 328, d. 389 a.d. 

P. Si. Murena: Roman consul, 63 B.C.; charged with bribery by 
Servius Sulpicius; defended by Cicero, in his oration Pro Murena. In 
Cicero's answer to Sulpicius, ' three months,' as given by Milton, should be 
* three days ' : * itaque, si mihi, homini vehementer occupato, stomachum 
moveritis, triduo me jurisconsultum esse profitebor.' 

To Carlo Dati. {Familiar Letters, No. X.) 

P. 83. tomb of Dainon : i.e. of Carolo Diodati. 
P. 83. that poem : ' Epitaphium Damonis.' 



262 NOTES 

On his Blindness 

P. 84. I. spent: extinguished. 

P. 84. 2. Ere half my days : i.e. are spent; Milton was about forty- 
four years old when his * light ' was fully * spent. ' 

P. 85. 8. fondly : foolishly; prevent: to come before, anticipate, fore- 
stall. 

P. 85. 12. thousands: z.^. of ' spiritual creatures.' See ' P. L.,' iv. 677. 

P. 85. 14. They also serve : i.e. as Verity explains, those other angels 
too, who, etc. 

To Leonard Philaras. (^Familiar Letters, No. XII.) 
P. 85. Angier {Rene) : resident agent in Paris for the English 
Parliament. 

To Henry Oldenburg. {Familiar Letters, No. XIV.) 

P. 87. Henry Oldenburg : b. at Bremen about 1615, d. 1677; 
sent in 1653 by the Council of Bremen as their agent to negotiate with 
Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be 
respected in the naval war between England and Holland (* Diet, of 
National Biography ') ; became a member and secretary of the Royal 
Society of London, and was afterward elected a fellow of the Society; 
corresponded extensively with the philosopher, Benedict Spinosa; pub- 
lished the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society from 1664 to 1677. 

P. 87. * Cry ' of that kind ' to Heaven ' .• the reference is to the Regii 
Sanguinis Clamor ad Caelum, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos (The Cry of 
the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides). 

P. 87. Morus : Alexander More, whom Milton supposed to be the 
author of ' The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven.' See note, p. 248. 
To Leonard Philaras. {Familiar Letters, No. XV.) 

P. 89. Phineus: see note on ' P. L.,' iii. 36, in this volume. 

P. 89. Sabjiydessus : a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Black Sea. 

P. 89. Argonautica : a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition, by 
Apollonius Rhodius. 

P. 89. Kapos 8i /xiv dfX(p€Kd\v\f/ev : 

* A darkling maze now round about him drew. 
The earth from underneath seemed whirling fast, 
j^ In languid trance he lay bereft of speech.' 

Prof. Charles E. Bennett'' s translation. 



MlLTOSr'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 263 

P. 90. the Wise Man : Ecclesiastes xi. 8. 
P. 90. Lynceus : the keen-sighted Argonaut. 

To Cyriac Skinner 

P. 91. I. this three years' day : this day three years ago. Milton be- 
came completely blind in 1652, so this sonnet must have been written in 
1655. though clear : see passage from Second Defence, p. 13. 

P. 91. 7. bate: from * abate.' 

P. 91. 8. bear up and steer right omvard : the nautical sense of ' bear 
up,' i.e. to put the ship before the wind, is indicated by what follows. 

P. 91. 10. conscience: consciousness. 

P. 91. 12. talks: the Trin. Coll. Ms. reading; the word 'rings' was 
substituted by Phillips in his printed copy of 1694; ' talks ' does not sound 
so well, in the verse, but it is more modest. 

P. 91. 13. mask: masquerade. 

On his deceased wife 
P. 91. I. my late espotised saint: his second wife, Catherine Wood- 
cock, whom he married November 12, 1656; she died in February, 1658. 

P. 91. 2. Alcestis : brought back to life by Herakles (Hercules), 
her glad husband: Admetus, King of Pherae in Thessaly. See Browning's 
* Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from [the Alkestis of] 
Euripides.' 

P. 91. 5. as whom : as one whom. 
P. 91. 6. Purification: Leviticus xii. 

P. 91. 10. her face was veiled: Alcestis was still in his mind. In 
Browning's ' Balaustion's Adventure,' when Plercules returns with her : 
' Under the great guard of one arm, there leant 
A shrouded something, live and woman-like, 
Propped by the heart-beats 'neath the lion coat. . . . 
There is no telling how the hero twitched 
The veil off : and there stood, with such fixed eyes 
And such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self ! ' 

To Emeric Bigot. (^Familiar Letters, No. XXI.) 
P. 92. Emeric Bigot: a French scholar, native of Rouen; b. 1626, 

d. 1689. 

P. 92. King Telephus of the Mysians : wounded by Achilles and by 

him healed with the rust of his spear; and in return Telephus directed the 

Greeks on their way to Troy. 



264 ^O TES 

Autobiographic passages itt the Paradise Lost 

P. 96. 2. Or of the Eternal: or may I, unblamed, express thee as the 
coeternal beam of the Eternal. 

P. 96. 6. increate '. qualifies ' bright effluence.' 

P. 96. 7. Or hear est thou rather: or approvest thou rather the 
appellation of pure ethereal stream ; ' hearest ' is a classicism : ' Matutine 
pater, seu Jane libentius audis ' (father of the morning, or if Janus thou 
hearest more willingly). — Horace, Sat. II., vi. 20, cited by Bentley. 
P. 97. 13. zving: flight. 

P. 97. 17. With other notes : Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which 
is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See ' Apoll. 
Rhodius,' i. 493. Orpheus was inspired by his mother Calliope only, 
Milton by the heavenly Muse; therefore he boasts that he sung with other 
notes than Orpheus, though the subjects were the same. — Richardson. 
P. 97. 21. hard and rare: evidently after Virgil's /Eneid, vi. 1 26-1 29. 
P. 97. 25. a drop serene .' gutta serena, i.e. amaurosis. 
P. 97. 26. diyn suffusion : cataract. 

P. 97. 34. So : appears to be used optatively, as Lat. sic, Greek ws, 
would that I were equalled with them in renown. 

P- 97- 35' Thamyris : a Thracian bard, mentioned by Homer, 
Iliad, ii. 595 : 

*he, over-bold, 
Boasted himself preeminent in song, 
Ev'n though the daughters of Olympian Jove, 
The Muses, were his rivals : they in wrath. 
Him of his sight at once and power of song 
Amerced, and bade his hand forget the lyre.' 

— Earl of Derby s Translation, 692-697. 

P' 97- 35" Mceotiides : a patronymic of Homer. 

P. 97. 36. Tiresias: the famous blind soothsayer of Thebes, ' cui 
profundum csecitas lumen dedit ' (to whom his blindness gave deep sight), 
says Milton, in his De Idea Platonica, v. 25. 

P- 97- 3^' Phineus: a blind soothsayer, who, according to some 
authorities, was king of Salmydessus, in Thrace. By reason of his cruelty 
to his sons, who had been falsely accused, he was tormented by the Har- 
pies, until delivered from them by the Argonauts, in return for prophetic 
information in regard to their voyage. 

P- 97- 39' darkling : in the dark. 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 265 

P. 97. 42. Day : note the emphasis imparted to this initial monosyl- 
labic word, which receives the ictus and is followed by a pause ; Milton 
felt that the loss of sight was fully compensated for by an inward celestial 
light. 

P. 98. I. Urania: the Heavenly Muse invoked in the opening of 
the poem. 

P. 98. 4. Pegasean wing : above the flight of 'the poet's winged 
steed ' of classical mythology. 

P. 98. 5. the meaning, not the name: Urania was the name of one 
of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, 
the Heavenly one. See vv. 38, 39. 

P. 98. 8. Before the hills appeared : Prov. viii. 23-31. 

P. 98. 10. didst play : the King James's version, Prov. viii. 30, reads, 
' rejoicing always before him ' ; the Vulgate, Htidens coram eo omni tempore.' 

P. 98. 15. thy tempering : the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted 
to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse. 

P. 98. 17. this flying steed: ie. this higher poetic inspiration than 
that represented by the classical Pegasus; tmreined : unbridled, infrenis. 

P. 98. 18. Bellerophon : thrown from Pegasus when attempting to 
soar upon the winged horse to heaven. 

P. 99. 19. Aleian field : in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he 
was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished; irihiov rh 'A\r]'iop, 
Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (aA?;). 

P. 99. 20. erroneous there to zvander : to wander without knowing 
whither; Lat. erroneus ; forlorn : entirely lost; ' for ' is intensive. 

P. 99. 21. I/alf yet remains unsung: 'half of the episode, not 
of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war 
in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other re- 
mained unsung, . . . but narrower bound, . . . this other half is not rapt 
so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower 
compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.' — Newton. 

narrower : more narrowly. 

P. 99. 26. on evil days though fallen : a pathetic emotional repeti- 
tion; note the artistic change in the order of the words. Macaulay justly 
characterizes the thirty years which succeeded the protectorate as ' the 
darkest and most disgraceful in the English annals. . . . Then came 
those days never to be recalled without a blush — the days of servitude 
without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigan- 
tic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of 



266 NOTES 

the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival 
[Louis XIV.] that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of 
France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and 
her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buf- 
foons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability 
enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles 
of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema 
Maranatha of every fawning dean. . . . Crime succeeded to crime, and 
disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second 
time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word 
and a shaking of the head to the nations.' 

P« 99' 33- Bacchus and his revellers : Charles II. and his Court, from 
whom Milton had reason to fear a similar fate to that of the Thracian 
bard, Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of 
Rhodope. 

P. 99. 38. so fail not thou : i.e. to defend me as the Muse Calliope 
failed to defend her son, Orpheus. 

P. 99. I. no more of talk : i.e. as in the foregoing episode. 

P. 99. 5. venial : allowable, fitting. 

P. 100. 14-19. the wrath of stern Achilles . . . Cytherea''s son : these 
are not the arguments (subjects) proper of the three epics, the Iliad, 
the Odyssey, and the /Eneid; as Newton pointed out, the poet men- 
tions certain angers or enmities, the wrath of Achilles, the rage of Turnus, 
Neptune's and Juno's ire; 'the anger, etc. (v. 10) of Heaven which he 
is about to sing is an argument more heroic, not only than the anger of 
men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune 
and Juno ; ' his foe : Hector ; Turnus : king of the Rutuli when i^neas 
arrived in Italy; Lavinia : daughter of King Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, 
but afterward given in marriage to ^neas; the Greek : Ulysses; Cytherea's 
son : /Eneas ; Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from the island Cythera, 
famous for her worship. 

P. 100. 19. Perplexed the G'r,?^?/^ / a respective construction, ' perplexed 
the Greek ' looks back to * Neptune's ire,' ' Cytherea's son,' to Juno's ire. 
Bentley's note is remarkable : ^Juno's that long perplexed the Greek : 
when, contrary, the Greek was her favourite all along.' 

P. 100. 20. answerable : corresponding to the high argument. 

P. 100. 21. my celestial Patroness : Urania, the Heavenly Muse. 

P. 100. 23. inspires : Milton regarded himself as inspired by the Holy 
Spirit in the composition of ' Paradise Lost.' 



MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 26/ 

P. lOO. 25. Since first this subject : Milton, as has been seen, had 
meditated, as early as 1638, an epic poem to be based on legendary British 
history, with King Arthur for its hero, a subject which it appears he aban- 
doned in the course of two or three years. While still undecided, he 
jotted down ninety-nine different subjects, sixty-one Scriptural, thirty-eight 
from British history. Among the former, ' Paradise Lost ' appears first of 
all. These jottings occupy seven pages of the Cambridge Mss. It is evi- 
dent that by 1640, Milton was quite decided as to the subject of ' Paradise 
Lost,' but not as to the form of his work. It was first as a tragedy that he 
conceived it, on the model of the Grecian drama with choruses. His 
nephew, Edward Phillips, informs us that several years before the poem 
was begun (about 1642, according to Aubrey), Satan's address to the sun 
(Book iv. 32-41) was shown him as designed for the beginning of the 
tragedy. The composition of the poem was begun, according to Phillips, 
about 1658, the poet being then fifty years of age. The student should 
read, in connection with this subject, the thirteenth chapter of Mark 
Pattison's ' Life of Milton.' 

P. 100. 35. Impresses : 'devices or emblems used on shields or other- 
wise.' Keightley alludes to the enumeration of the devices of the nobles 
of England, in the tenth Canto of the ' Orlando Furioso.' 

P. 100. 36. bases: 'the base was a skirt or kilt which hung down 
from the waist to the knees of the knight when on horseback.' 

P. 100. 37. marshalled feast : ' from Minshew's " Guide into Tongues," 
it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and 
saw that they were properly served; the sewer marched in before the 
meats and arranged them on the table, and was originally called Asscour 
from the French asseoir, to set down, or place; and the Seneshal was the 
household-steward.' — Todd. 

P. 100. 41. Me . . . higher argtiment remains : i.e. for me. 

P. loi. 44. an age too late : Milton might well feel, in the reign of 
the ' merry monarch,' that he was treating his high argument in an age 
too late. 

P. loi. 45,46. my intended wing depressed: *wing' is used, by 
metonymy, for ' flight.' Keightley incorrectly puts a comma after ' wing,' 
* intended wing depressed ' being a case of the placing of a noun between 
two epithets, usual with Milton, the epithet following the noun qualifying 
the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet. Rev. James Robert Boyd, 
in his edition of the ' P. L.,' explains ' intended,' ' stretched out '; but the 
word is undoubtedly used in its present sense of ' purposed.' 



26S NOTES 



Letter to Peter Heimbach. {Familiar Letters, No. XXXI.) 

P. I02. a country retreat: *a pretty box,' secured for him by his 
Quaker friend, Elwood, at Chalfont St. Giles; the house still exists, having 
undergone little or no change. 

I hardly like to express in the text a fancy that has occurred to me 
in translating the letter and studying it in connection with Heimbach's, 
to wit, that Milton may not merely have been ironically rebuking Heim- 
bach for his adulation and silly phraseology, but may also have been sus- 
picious of the possibility of some trap laid for him politically. Certainly, 
if this letter of Milton's to a Councillor of the Elector of Brandenburg had 
been intercepted by the English government, it is so cleverly worded that 
nothing could have been made of it. But Heimbach may have been as 
honest as he looks. Even then, however, Milton, knowing little or noth- 
ing of Heimbach for the last nine years, had reason to be cautious. 
— Masson. 



Passages in which Milton^ s Idea of True Liberty is 
Set Forth 

P. 104. Deep versed in books : Milton would, I conceive, have thus 
characterized his old antagonist, SalmasiUs. — Dunster. 

P. 104. trijles for choice matters : as choice matters. 

P. 104. worth a spzaige : deserving to be wiped out. So in his ' Areopa- 
gitica ' : ' sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue-wise, in 
the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other 
with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in per- 
plexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge.' 

P. III. [/zza : see 2 Sam. vi. 3-8. 

P. 112. Whom do we count a good man : 

* Vir bonus est quis? — 
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat; 
Quo mult?e magnoeque secantur judice lites; 
Quo res sponsore, et quo causae teste tenentur. 
Sed videt hunc omnis domus et vicinia tota 
Introrsiis turpem, speciosum pelle decor^.' 

— Epistolarum Liber, i. 16, vv. 40-45, Ad Quinctium. 



MILTON'S IDEA OF TRUE LIBERTY 269 

P. 118. Crescentiiis Nomentamis : Roman patrician, a native of No- 
mentum (now La Mentana), tenth century, was at the head of the Italian 
party against the Germans and the popes, with title of Consul; was be- 
sieged in the Castle St. Angelo, and finally capitulated on terms honorable 
to himself, but' was basely put to death by Otho III., a.d. 998. 

r. 118. AHcholas Reniius : Rienzi, or Rienzo (Niccolo Gabrini), or 
Cola di Rienzi, 'the last of the Roman Tribunes,' b. about 1313, d. 

1354. 

* Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Rienzi ! last of Romans ! while the tree 
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf, 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
The forum's champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas ! too brief.' 

— Byron's Childe Harold, Canto iv. St. cxiv. 

P. 120. the resentment of Achilles : the subject of the Iliad. 

P. 120. the return of Ulysses : the subject of the Odyssey. 

P. 120. the coming of ALneas into Italy : the subject of the ^neid. 

P. 121. As when those hinds: he compares the reception given it 
[the doctrine of his Divorce pamphlets] to the treatment of the goddess 
Latona and her newly born twins by the Lycian rustics. These twins 
afterward 'held the sun and moon in fee' {i.e. in full possession), for 
they were Apollo and Diana; and yet, when the goddess, carrying them 
in her arms, and fleeing from the wrath of Juno, stooped in her fatigue to 
drink of the water of a small lake, the rustics railed at her and puddled the 
lake with their hands and feet; for which, on the instant, at the god- 
dess's prayer, they were turned into frogs, to live forever in the mud of 
their own making (Ovid, Met.,\\. 335-381).' — Masson. Wordsworth 
uses the phrase, ' in fee,' in the same way in the opening verse of his 
sonnet on the ' Extinction of the Venetian Republic ' : * Once did She hold 
the gorgeous east in fee.' 

P. 121. lapse : fall. 

P. 121. tzvinned : as a twin. 

P. 121. dividual: separate. 

P. 121. undeservedly : without right or merit; no thanks to them. 



2/0 NOTES 

P. 121. virtue, which is reason : ' Virtus est recta ratio, et animi habitus, 
natures modo, rationi consentaneus.' — Cicero. 

P. 123. 424. his son Herod : king of Judea when Christ was born. 

P. 123. 439. Gideon, and Jephtha ; see Judges \\.-yi\\\. and xi., xii. ; 
the shepherd-lad : David; see the Books of Samuel. 

P. 123. 446. Quintius : QuintiusCincinnatus : Fabricius: the patriotic 
Roman who was proof against the bribes of Pyrrhus; Curius: Curius 
Dentatus : who would accept no public rewards; Regulus : after dissuad- 
ing the Romans from making peace with the Carthaginians, returned to 
Carthage, knowing the consequences he would suffer. 

Comus 

P. 129. 4. With Midas' ears : i.e. with the ears of an ass; committing : 
bringing together, setting at variance (Lat. committere^. Martial says, 
* Cum Juvenale meo cur me committere tentas?' i.e. * why try to match me 
with my Juvenal,' i.e. in a poetical contest with him. 

P. 129. 5. exempts: separates, distinguishes; the compound subject, 
' worth and skill ' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb. 

P. 1 29. II. story : * the story of Ariadne, set by him to music,' as ex- 
plained in a note in ' Choice Psalms,' 1648. 

P. 129. 13. Casella : 'a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who 
here [' Purgatorio,' ii. 91 et seq.A^ speaks to him with so much tenderness 
and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him. — 
Longfellozv^s note. 

milder shades : i.e. than those of the Inferno which Dante has just left. 

3. insphered : in their several spheres. 

7. pestered : here, as indicated by ' pinfold,' the word means * clogged '; 
'pester' is a shortened form of * impester.' Fr. etnpetrer (OF. empestrer) 
' signifies properly to hobble a horse while he feeds afield. Mid. Lat. 
pastorium, a clog for horses at pasture.' — Brachefs Etymol. Diet, of the 
French Language, s.v. depetrer. 

10. After this mortal change : ' mortal ' I understand to be used here as 
a noun, the subject of ' change,' a verb in the subjunctive; there is evi- 
dently an allusion to i Cor. xv. 52-54, in which occur the expressions, 
' we shall be changed ' and ' this mortal must put on immortality.' 

16. ambrosial weeds : immortal or heavenly garments, i.e. garments 
worn by an immortal. Gk. 'Afx^p6aios, lengthened form of ^fi^poros, im- 
mortal. See V. 83. 



COMUS 



271 



20. high and nether Jove : by metonymy for the realms of Jove and Pluto. 
23. unadomhd : i.e. but for 'the sea-girt isles.' 
25. several: separate; by course : in due order. 

29. quarters : not literally, but simply, divides, distributes. 

30. this tract that fronts the falling sun : Wales. 

31. a noble Peer: the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, 
before whom ' Comus ' was presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634. 

32. tempered awe : i.e. tempered with mercy; 'mercy seasons justice.' 
34. nursed in princely lore : nurtured in high learning. 

2,^. horror : ruggedness, shagginess. See v. 429. . . . ' densis hastilibus 
horrida myrtus.' — N'ugxVs. ^neid, iii. 23. brows: overarching branches. 

39. forlorn and wandering : entirely lost and, consequently, straying 
at random. 

48. After the Tuscan mariners transformed : a Latinism; so, 'since 
created man.' — P. Z., i. 573. The allusion is to the story of the Etruscan 
or Tyrrhenian pirates, who attempted to carry off Bacchus, sell him as a 
slave, and were by him changed into dolphins. — Ovid, Met., 660 et seq. 

49. listed: pleased. 

50. On . . . fell : happened upon. 

59. of: from, by reason of. 

60. Celtic and Iberian fields : France and Spain. 

61. oviinous : portentous. 

65. orient: bright. The word was used independently of the idea of 
'eastern.' In the ode 'On the Nativity,' v. 231, the setting sun 'pillows 
his chin upon an orient wave.' Fuller, in his ' Holy War,' Book ii. Chap. L, 
says of Godfrey of Bouillon, ' His soul was enriched with many virtues, 
but the most orient of all was his humility, which took all men's affections 
without resistance.' 

66. the drouth of Phcebus : the thirst caused by the sun's heat. 

67. fond : foolish. 

88. nor of less faith : i.e. than of musical power; 'faith' means the 
fidelity of his service. 

90. Likeliest: the best suited for impersonation by the Attendant Spirit, 
by reason of his office of mountain- watch over the flocks. He would there- 
fore be supposed to be near at hand if aid were needed. 

92. viewless: invisible. 

93. The star that bids the shepherd fold : the evening star cannot be said 
to hold the top of heaven, i.e. be in the meridian; any star, the earliest 
to appear, must be meant. 



2/2 NOTES 

loi. his chamber in the east : an allusion to Psalm xix. 5. 
1 10. saws : sayings, maxims; ' grave ' is used contemptuously by Comus. 
116. to the vioon in wavering inorrice move: the sounds and seas 
beneath the moon reflect dancing lights ; * morrice,' a rapid Moorish 
dance, once common in England. 

129. Cotytto : the goddess of shameless and licentious orgies. Her 
priests were called Baptce. 

' involved in thickest gloom, 
Cotytto's priests her secret torch illume ; 
And to such orgies give the lustful night, 
That e'en Cotytto sickens at the sight.' 

— afford'' s translation of yuvenal, ii, 91, 92. 
132. spets : spits. 

1 35. Hecate : goddess of sorcery and magic and ' of all kinds of 
nocturnal ghastliness, such as spectral sights, the bowlings of dogs, 
haunted spots, the graves of the murdered, witches at their incantations ' 
(A/asson). King Lear (I. i. 112) swears by * the mysteries of Hecate and 
the night.' 

139. nice: fastidious, over-scrupulous ; used contemptuously by Comus. 
141. descry: reveal. 

144. round: a circular dance; in *L' Allegro,' 34, we have 'the light 
fantastic toe.' 

151. trains: enticements, allurements. 

154. spungy air : which absorbs his * dazzling spells.' 

155. blear: dim, deceiving. 

156. false presentments : representations which deceive the eye. 

157. quaint habits : strange garments. 

165. virtue : peculiar power. See v. 621; *I1 Pens.,' 113. 

167. country gear : rural affairs. 

168. fairly : softly. 

175. granges : used in its original sense — barns. (¥x. grange.') 

178. swilled: drunken. 

180. inform my unacquainted feet : where else shall I learn my way 
than from these revellers. 

203. perfect : perfectly distinct, sure, certain, unmistakable. There is 
a similar use of the word in Shakespeare : *Thou art perfect, then, our 
ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia ?' — Wintei-^s Tale, IH. 
iii. I ; 'I am perfect that the Pannonians and Dalmatians for their liberties 
are now in arms.' — Cymb., HI. i. 73; 'What hast thou done ? I am 



COM us 273 

perfect what ' (I know full well, I am fully aware.' Schmidt). — Cyvib.^ 
IV. ii. 118. 

204. single darkness : pure darkness, only that and nothing more. 

210. may startle well : i.e. may well (or indeed) startle. 

212. strong-siding : strongly supporting. 

215. Chastity : significantly substituted for Charity, as the compan- 
ion virtue of Faith and Hope, it being the theme, the central idea of the 
poem, to which an explicit expression is given in the Elder Brother's 
speech, vv. 418-475, and in the speech of the Lady to Comus, 780-799. 

231. airy shell: the dome of the sky; 'cell' is in the margin of 
Milton's Ms. 

248. his : (old neuter genitive) its, referring to ' something.' 

2^1. fall : cadence. 

251, 252. smoothing . . . till it smiled: Dr. Symmons, in his * Life of 
Milton,' remarks : ' Darkness may aptly be represented by the blackness 
of the raven ; and the stillness of that darkness may be paralleled by an 
image borrowed from the object of another sense — by the softness of 
down ; but it is surely a transgression which stands in need of pardon 
when, proceeding a step further and accumulating personifications, we 
invest this raven-down with life and make it smile.' The metaphorical 
use of ' smile ' or ' laugh,' applied to inanimate things that are smooth, 
shining, glossy, bright in colour, and the like, is, perhaps, common in all 
literatures. The Latin ' rideo ' and the Greek 7eXdw are frequently so used ; 
eg. ' florumque coloribus almus ridet ager ' (and the bounteous field 
laughs with the colours of its flowers) . — Ovid, Met., xv. 205 ; ' Domus ridet 
argento ' (the house smiles with glittering silver). — Horace, Odes, IV. 
xi. 6; ' Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet ' (that corner of the 
earth smiles for me above all others). — Horace, Odes, IL vi. 14. 

262. hojue-felt delight : i.e. delight that keeps one at home with himself, 
does not carry him out of himself; in contrast with the singing of Circe and 
the Sirens three, which ' in sweet madness robbed it (the sense) of itself.^ 

267. unless the goddess : i.e. unless (thou be) the goddess ; ' dwell'st ' 
should properly be ' dwells,' the antecedent of the relative ' that ' 
being ' goddess,' third person, not ' thou ' in the ellipsis. 

273. extreme shift : last resort ; Fr. dernier ressort. 

279. near ushering : attending near at hand. 

1%^. forestalling night: preventing, or hindering, night came before 
them ; ' forestall ' has here the present sense of ' prevent,' and ' prevent ' 
its old, literal sense of come before. 
T 



274 



NOTES 



287. imports their loss : does their loss signify other than your present 
need of them ? 

290. Hebe : the goddess of youth ; cupbearer to the gods before 
Ganymedes. 

293. Swinked : hard- worked. Spenser frequently uses the verb 
' swink,' and several times in connection with ' sweat ' ; severe toil is 
always implied in his use of the word : * For which men swinck and sweat 
incessantly.' — F. Q., 2. 7, 8 ; * And every one did swincke, and every one 
did sweat. — 2.7,36; * For which he long in vaine did sweate and 
swinke,' 6. 4, 32 ; ' Of mortal men, that swincke and sweate for nought.' 
— JVie Sheapherd^ s Calender, November, 154 ; ' For they doo swinke 
and sweate to feed the other.' — Mother Hubbard'' s Tale, 163. 

301. plighted : folded, involved. 

313. bosky bourn: Masson explains 'shrubby boundary or water- 
course.' Warton's explanation seems better supported by the context : ' A 
bourn . . . properly signifies here, a winding, deep, and narrow valley, 
with a rivulet at the bottom. In the present instance, the declivities are 
interspersed with trees and bushes. This sort of valley Comus knew from 
side to side. He knew both the opposite sides or ridges, and had conse- 
quently traversed the intermediate space.' 

315. attendance: attendants. 

329. square : adapt. 

332. wonfst : art accustomed ; benison : blessing. 

333. stoop : the same idea, or impression, rather, in regard to the 
moon, is expressed in • II Penseroso,' 72 : 

'And oft, as if her head she bowed, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.' 

* And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars. 
That give away their motion to the stars.' 

— Coleridge'' s Dejection : an Ode. 

336. influence : (astrological) the effect floiving in, or upon, from 
the stars. See 'P. L.,' vii. 375, viii. 513, ix. 107, x. 662; *L'A1.,' 122; 
'Od. Nat.,' 71. 

340. rule : long horizontal beam of light. 

341. Star of Arcady : the constellation of the Greater Bear, by which, 
or by some star in which, the Greek mariner steered his course. 



COM us 275 

342. Tyrian Cynosure : the constellation of the Lesser Bear, or the 
pole star therein, by which the Phoenician (Tyrian) mariner steered. 

344. wattled cotes : sheep-pens made of interwoven twigs. 

349. innumerous : innumerable. 

355. leans: subject 'she' implied in 'her,' above. See note on 'Sam- 
son Agonistes', 1671; some editors make 'head' the subject. 

358. heat: lust. 

359. exquisite: used literally: outsearching; 'consider not too 
curiously.' 

366. so to seek : so wanting, so much at a loss. 

367. unprincipled : ignorant of the elements, or first principles. 

369. noise : not to be connected with ' single want of ' ; the meaning 
is, mere darkness and noise. 
373. would : might wish. 

375. flat sea : in ' Lycidas,' 98, ' level brine.' 

376. oft seeks to : oft resorts to. 

380. all to-ruffled: all ruffled up; the prefix 'to-' is an old inten- 
sive, with force of ^er. 'zer-'; generally imparts the idea of destruction: 
'all to-brake,' broke all in pieces; 'all to-rent,' tore all in pieces, 

382. centre : as in Shakespeare, centre of the earth. 

386. affects: likes, entirely without any of its present meaning of 
making a show of. 

390. weeds : garments. 

391. 771 a pie : maple-wood. 

393. Hespe7-ia}i tree : the tree in the Hesperian gardens which bore 
golden apples and was guarded by the sleepless dragon Ladon, which was 
slain by Hercules. 

395. U7ie7icha7ited : not to be enchanted, or wrought upon by magical 
spells. 

401. witik 071 : not take notice or advantage of. 

402. single : solitary, alone. 

404, it recks 77ie 7iot : I take no account of, care not for. 

405. eve7its : outcomes, consequences. 
407. u7ioivned : without a protector. 

409. without all doubt : i.e. without any doubt; a Latinism, 
413. squiiit : 'looking askance.' Spenser represents Suspect (' F. Q.,' 
3. 12, 15) as 

' ill favoured, and grim, 
Under his eiebrowes looking still askaunce.' 



2/6 NOTES 

419, if: even if Heaven did gwe. it. 

423. unharboured : without harbor, or shelter. 

424. infdmous : of bad reputation. 

430. unblenched : fearless, self-sustained. 

432. some say : reminds, as has been often noted, of the passage in 
• Hamlet ' : ' some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,' etc. — I. i. 158. 
455. lackey : attend, or wait upon, as guardians. 
474. and linked itself: and as if it were itself linked. 

494. artful : artistic, skilful. 

495. huddling: hurrying; Verity understands 'huddling' as the result 
of ' delayed.' 

501. next joy : Thyrsis addresses the elder brother as his master's 
heir, and then the second brother as ' his next joy,' i.e. object of his joy. 
503. stealth : the thing stolen. 

509. sadly: seriously; zvithout blame : z'.^. on our part. 
515, 516. what the sage poets . . . storied: made the theme of story: 

Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories 
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories. 

— Shakespeare'' s V. and A., 1013, 14. 
520. navel: centre. 

526. murmurs : muttered spells, or incantations. 
529. mintage: coinage. 

533. monstrous rout: rout of monsters; so, 'monstrous world,' world 
of monsters. — Lycidas, 158. 

539. utiweeting: not knowing. 

540. by then : by the time that. 

547. meditate : practice ; see * Lycidas,' 66. 

548. had : subj., should have ; close : i.e. of his * rural minstrelsy.' 

552. unusual stop of sudden silence : see 145. 

553. droivsy-fiighted : this is the reading of the Cambridge Ms., 
which Masson adopts. Lawes's ed., 1637, ^"^ Milton's editions, 1645, 
1673, read ' drowsie frighted.' Masson quite conclusively supports the 
reading of the Ms., which he explains, ' always drowsily flying.' Keightley 
retains ' drowsy frighted,' but says in his note, ' we are strongly inclined to 
think it [the Ms. reading] the right reading, and the present one a mis- 
take of Lawes himself or his printer. ' 

558. took: rapt. 
560. still : ever. 



COM us 277 

585. period : sentence. 

586. for me : as for me. 

603. grisly: horrible. 'So spake the grisly terror (Death).' — P. L., 
ii. 704. 

604. Acheron: a river of the lower world; here used for the lower 
world itself. 

607. purchase: acquisition; the word retains here much of its original 
meaning, i.e. what has been hunted down or stolen. 

^\o. yet : notwithstanding; emprise: here, readiness for any danger- 
ous undertaking. 

619. a certain shepherd-lad: a supposed compliment to Miltons 
dearest friend, Charles Diodati. ^ 

620. to see to : to look upon. 

621. virtuous: efficacious, potent. 
627. simples : medicinal herbs. 

634. and like esteemed : i.e. and (un) esteemed. 

635. clouted shoon : patched shoes. 

636. Moly : (Gk. \x<a\v) a fabulous herb, ' that Hermes [Mercury] to 
wise Ulysses gave,' as a protection against the spells of Circe. — Od., x. 
305. See Pope's note, in his translation, x. 361, Tennyson's ' Lotus 
Eaters,' 133. 

638. Hamony : supposed to be from Haemonia, Thessaly, famous for 
its magic. 

641. Furies\' used objectively. 

642. little reckoning made : see ' Lycidas,' 116. 
646. lime-tzvigs : used metaphorically. 

662. root-bound : referring to her metamorphosis into a laurel tree 
(Sa^j/rj). 

673. his : old neuter genitive, its. 

675. Nepenthes (Gk. j/777rej/0ey, sorrow-soothing) : the drug (sup- 
posed to be opium) given by Polydamna to Helena, who put it into her 
husband Menelaus's wine. — Od., iv. 220 et seq. See note to Pope's 
translation, v. 302. 

' Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore.' 

— Poe''s Raven, 83. 

685. tmexempt condition : condition to which all mortal frailty is 
subject, namely, refreshment after toil, ease after pain. 
688. that : referring to 'you,' 682. 



278 NOTES 

695. oughly : the spelling in Milton's editions; 'as Milton has the 
common spelling, ugly, in all other cases where he has used the word, he 
must have intended a different form here, perhaps to indicate a more 
guttural pronunciation.' — Masson. 

698. visor ed : masked; he appears as 'some harmless villager,' v. 166. 

707. budge: austere, morose; fur : used metaphorically for order, sect, 
profession. Landor remarks that ' it is the first time Cynic or Stoic ever 
put on fur.' * Budge ' also means a kind of fur, but it certainly cannot 
have that meaning here; the context requires the other meaning. 

708. from the Cynic tub : i.e. from the tub whence Diogenes, the 
Cynic, delivered them. 

714. curious : careful, nice, delicate, fastidious. 

719. hutched : hoarded, laid up, as in a hutch or chest. 

724. yet : in addition; or, it may have the force of ' even.' 

744. it: i.e. beauty. 

750. grain : * a term derived from the Latin granum, a seed or 
kernel, or grain in the sense of " grain of corn," — which word granum 
had come, in later Latin times, to be applied specifically to the coccum, a 
peculiar dye-stuff consisting of the dried, granular, or seed-like bodies of 
insects of the genus Coccus, collected in large quantities from trees in 
Spain and other Mediterranean countries. But that dye was distinctly red. 
Another name for it, and for the insect producing it, was kermes . . . 
whence our " carmine " and " crimson." " Grain," therefore, meant a dye 
of such red as might be produced by the use of kermes or coccum.' — 
From Masson's note on ' Sky-tinctured grain,' * P. L.,' v. 285, based on 
George P. Marsh's dissertation on the etymology of the word, in his 
'Lectures on the English Language' (ist S., 4th Am. ed., 1861, pp. 65- 
75). Masson's note on 'cheeks of sorry grain' is '?.<». of poor colour,' 
as if ' grain ' were used in the general sense of colour merely. It is better, 
I think, to understand ' grain ' here in its special sense of red, but used by 
Comus ironically, as indicated by 'sorry.' Beautiful cheeks are presumed 
to have a delicate reddish hue; but where the features are homely and the 
complexion coarse, the cheeks may be said, ironically, to be of a sorry 
grain, i.e. not red at all. 

759. pranked : set off, adorned, decked. 

760. bolt : sift, refine ; a metaphor from the process of separating 
flour from the bran. But the word may mean, as Dr. Newton explains, ' to 
shoot,' or, as Dr. Johnson explains, ' to blurt out, or throw out precipi- 
tantly.' 



COM us 279 

782. sun-clad : spiritually refulgent. 

785. the sublime notion: see in extract from 'Apology for Smec- 
tymnuus,' in this volume. 

788. worthy : deserving, in a bad sense. 

790. j/our dear wit : the change from ' thy ' to ' your ' is not ex- 
plainable here. 

791. her dazzling fence : dear wit's and gay rhetoric'^ dazzling art 
of fencing. Todd quotes from Prose Works, ' Hired Masters of Tongue- 
fence ' : * dear wit ' and ' gay rhetoric,' not constituting a compound idea 
in Milton's mind, the relative * that,' of which they are the antecedents, 
takes a singular verb, and the two nouns are represented by the singular 
personal pronoun ' her.' In the following passage from Spenser's ' Faerie 
Queene,' B. II. C. ii. St. 31, two subjects take a singular verb, and are 
represented by a singular personal pronoun : 

* But lovely concord, and most sacred peace, 
Doth nourish vertue, and fast friendship breeds; 
Weake she makes strong, and strong thing does increace.' 

The italicized portion of the following passage from ' The Passions and 
Facuhies of the Soul,' by Reynolds, C. xxxix, given in Trench's ' Select 
Glossary,' s.v. Wit, defines well ' dear wit ' : ' I take not ivit in that com- 
mon acceptation, whereby men understand some sudden flashes of conceit 
luhether in style or conference, tuhich, like rotten zvood in the dark, have 
more shine than substance, whose use and ornament are, like themselves, 
s-iuift and vanishing, at once both admired and forgotten. But I under- 
stand a settled, constant and habitual sufficiency of the understanding, 
whereby it is enabled in any kind of learning, theory, or practice, both to 
sharpness in search, subtilty in expression, and despatch in execution.' 

797. brute : senseless ; lend her nerves: i.e. to this sacred vehemence. 

800-806. spoken aside, 

804. speaks thtinder : threatens thunder and the chains of Erebus to 
some of the Titans who are disposed to be rebellious in their imprisonment 
in Tartarus. It seems to be meant that Erebus is a more painful region 
than that into which they were cast after their defeat by Jove (Zeus). 

815. snatched his wand : see v. 653. 

816. without his rod reversed: the process, as related in Ovid, 
' Met.,' xiv. 299-305, by which the companions of Ulysses are, through his 
intervention, retransformed by Circe. 

822. Meliboeus : Spenser is probably referred to. 



280 NOTES 

823. soothest : truest, most faithful. 

826. Sabrina : the legend of Sabrina is told by Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, in his 'Latin History of the Britons'; by Drayton, in his 
* Polyolbion,' 6th Song ; by Warner, in his ' Albion's England ' ; by 
Spenser, in his 'Faerie Queene,' II. x. 14-19, and by Milton, in the first 
book of his ' History of Britain.' 

835. Nereus : 'the good spirit of the /Egean Sea,' father of the 
nereids or sea-nymphs. 

852. old swain : Meliboeus. 

867-889. Listen, and appear to us : Oceamis was the most ancient 
sea-god, . . . Neptune, with his trident, was a later being. Tethys was 
the wife of Oceanus, and mother of the river-gods. Hoary Nereus is the 
'aged Nereus' of line 835. The Carpathian wizard '\% the subtle Proteus, 
ever shifting his shape : . . . Triton, son of Neptune and Aphrodite, . . . 
he was ' scaly,' because the lower part of him was fish. Glaucus was a 
Boeotian fisherman who had been changed into a marine god : . . . was 
an oracle for sailors and fishermen. Leucothea (' the white goddess ') was 
originally Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, and had received her new name 
after she had drowned herself and been converted into a sea-deity. Her 
son that rules the strands was Melicertes, drowned and deified with her, 
and thenceforward known as Palce?non, or Portutnttus, the god of bays and 
harbours. Thetis, one of the daughters of Nereus, and therefore a sea- 
deity by birth, married Peleus, and was the mother of Achilles : . . . Of 
the Sirens, or singing sea-nymphs . . . Parthenope and Ligea were two. 
The ' dear tomb ' of the first was at Naples . . . the * golden comb ' of the 
second is from stories of our own mermaids. — Masson^s note, condensed. 

900. gentle swain : the attendant spirit is still in the person and 
habit of the shepherd Thyrsis. 

913. cure: curative power. 

919. his : old neuter genitive, its. 

921. to ivait : to attend in the bower (court) of Amphitrite (wife 
of Neptune). 

922. daughter of Locrine : see vv. 827, 828. The order of the 
legendary ' line ' is, Anchises, y^neas, Ascanius, Silvius, Brutus, Locrine. 

924. brimmed : full to the brim or edge of the bank ; cf. ' full-fed 
river.' — Tennyson's Palace of Art. 

929. scorch : optative subj. 

934-937. The true construction of these lines is pointed out by Mr. 
Calton, quoted in Todd's variorum ed. : ' May thy lofty head be crowned 



LYCIDAS 281 

round with many a tower and terrace, and here and there [may] thy 
banks [be crowned] upon with groves of myrrh and cinnamon.' 

960. dtick or nod : i.e. of the awkward country dancers. 

964. mincing Dryades : daintily stepping wood-nymphs. 

968. goodly : interesting and attractive in appearance. 

972. assays: trials. 

982. Hesperus and his daughters three : brother of Atlas, and father of 
the Hesperides. 

1012. But now, etc. : may be an. independent or a subordinate sen- 
tence; if the latter, understand ' that ' after ' now.' It is, perhaps, prefera- 
ble to take it as an independent sentence. 

1015. dowed welkin: arched sky; the idea is that the bend is the 
less noticeable at * the green earth's end.' 

1017. corners: horns. 

1021. higher than the sphery chime: * i.e. to the Empyrean, beyond 
the spheres which give forth their music' — Keightley. 



Lycidas 

P. 167. haud procul a littore Britannico : 'the ship having struck on 
a rock not far from the British shore and been ruptured by the shock, he, 
while the other passengers were fruitlessly busy about their mortal lives, 
having fallen forward upon his knees, and breathing a life which was im- 
mortal, in the act of prayer going down with the vessel, rendered up his 
soul to God, August 10, 1637, aged 25.' — Masson's translation. 

1-5. Yet once more: these verses express the poet's sense of his un- 
ripeness for the exercise of the poetic gift. See his ' English Letter to a 
Friend,' p. 40; laurel, myrtle, and ivy are poetical emblems. 

5. before the mellowing year: i.e. before the mellowing year or 
period of his own life; 'mellowing' is intransitive, growing or becoming 
mellow; 'year' is not a nominative, the subject of 'does' or 'shatters,' 
understood, as several editors make it, but is the object of the preposition 
' before.' 

6. dear: of intimate concernment; the word was formerly applied 
to what is precious, or painful, to the heart; it has here, of course, the lat- 
ter application. 

7. Compels me to disturb your season due : i.e. compels me to 
write a poem before I have attained to the requisite * inward ripeness.' 



282 NOTES 

The compound subject, ' bitter constraint and sad occasion dear,' is logi- 
cally singular, and takes a singular verb. The placing of a noun between 
two epithets is usual with Milton, especially when the epithet following the 
noun qualifies the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet ; e.g. • hazel 
copses green,' v. 42; 'flower-inwoven tresses torn.' — Hyf?in on the 
Nativity, 187; 'beckoning shadows dire.' — Comusy 207. 

14. melodious tear: 'tear' is used, by metonymy, for an elegiac 
poem. 

15. sacred well : the Pierian spring. 

16. the seat of Jove : Mount Olympus. 

17. loudly: i.e. as Hunter explains, in lamentation; or, perhaps, in 
praises. 

18. Hence tvith denial vain and coy excuse: away with, etc., i.e. on 
w^part; denial: refusal; coy: shrinking, hesitating, reluctant, by reason 
of what is expressed in the opening verses. 

19-22. So may . . . sable shroud : these verses are parenthetical, and 
V. 23 must be connected with v. 18, ' Hence with denial vain,' etc. 1 have 
followed Keightley's pointing; gentle Muse: high-born (nobly endowed) 
poet; lucky words: words that will favorably perpetuate my memory; 
bid fair peace : pray that fair peace be, etc. 

23-36. For we were nursed : these verses express in pastoral language 
the devotion to their joint studies, early and late, of Milton and King, at 
Christ's College, Cambridge. 

25. ere the high lawns appeared : i.e. before daybreak. 

28. What time the grey-fly : i.e. the sultry noontide. 

30. Oft till the star . . . had sloped his westering zvheel : i.e. they 
continued their studies till after midnight, while in the meantime many of 
their fellow-students were giving themselves to music and dancing. 

33. Tempered : attuned, modulated. 

36. old Damcetas : ' may be,' says Masson, ' some fellow or tutor 
of Christ's College, if not Dr. Bainbrigge, the master.' 

37. A^ow thou art gone : emotionally repeated; heavy: sad. 

40. IVith wild thyme . . . overgrown : to be connected only with 
' desert caves,' not ' woods.' 

44. to : responsively to. 

45. canker: cankerworm, 

49. Such: used in its etymological sense, so-like; so-like killing is 
thy loss; thy : of thee; the personal pronoun here, used objectively, and 
not the possessive adjective pronoun. 



LYCIDAS 283 

52. the steep : some one of the Welsh mountains. 

53. lie : lie buried. 

54. Mona : the isle of Anglesey; Mona is represented by Tacitus as 
the chief seat of the Druids; shaggy: densely wooded ; 'shaggy hill.' — 
P. L., iv. 224. 

'They plucked the seated hills, with all their load, 
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops 
Uplifting, bore them in their hands.' — P. Z., vi. 645. 

'grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades.' — Co?}ius, 429. 

55. Deva : the river Dee; called a 'wizard stream' from its asso- 
ciations with Druidical divinations and traditions, or Milton, in his use of 
the epithet, may have had more particularly in his mind the belief in 
regard to the river as the boundary between England and Wales, that it 
was itself prophetic. Drayton, in his ' Polyolbion,' loth Song, says of the 
Dee: 

' A brook, that was supposed much business to have seen. 
Which had an ancient bound twixt Wales and England been, 
And noted was by both to be an ominous flood. 
That changing of his fords, the future ill, or good, 
Of either country told; of cither's war, or peace. 
The sickness, or the health, the dearth, or the increase : 
And that of all the floods of Britain, he might boast 
His stream in former times to have been honoured most, 
When as at Chester once King Edgar held his court. 
To whom eight lesser kings with homage did resort : 
That mighty Mercian lord, him in his barge bestowed, 
And was by all those kings about the river rowed.' 

Aubrey, in his 'Miscellanies,' 1696, Chap. XVII., says, as quoted by 
Todd, ' F. Q.,' IV. xi. 39, ' when any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, 
there will appear over the water, where the corpse is, a light, by which 
means they do find the body; and it is therefore called the holy Dee.' 

58. The Mtise herself: Calliope. 

59. enchanting : refers to the power he exercised, with the lyre given 
him by Apollo, over wild beasts, trees, rocks, etc. 

64-69. Alas! what boots it: in these verses Milton, with his high 
ideal of the function of poetry, laments its low state, and momentarily 
gives way to the thought that it would be better to conform to the pre- 



284 NOTES 

vailing flimsy taste than to 'strictly meditate the thankless Muse,' i.e. seri- 
ously devote one's self to song such as meets with no favor in these days. 
Amaryllis and Neaera are names of shepherdesses in Virgil's first and third 
Eclogues, and in other pastorals; 'meditate the thankless Muse' is after 
Virgil's ' Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avenS.' — EcL, i. 2. 

75. Fury : used in a general, and not in its special, mythological 
sense; the allusion is, of course, to Atropos, one of the Fates; called a 
blind fury by reason of the rashness with which she sometimes slits the 
thin-spun thread of life, as in the case of his friend King; 'slit' now 
always means to cut lengthwise; here, to cut across, sever. 

76. But not the praise : ' slits ' is understood, but it doesn't yoke 
well with ' praise ' ; the nearest substitute would be 'cuts off': but cuts 
not off the praise. 

79. JVor in: i.e. nor (lies) in, not set off in; 'set off' refers, not 
to ' Fame,' but to * glistering foil,' i.e. the bright outside exhibited to the 
world. 

81. dy .' as Keightley explains, by means of, under the influence of; he 
quotes Habakkuk i. 13 : 'Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.' 

8^. fountain Arethuse : in the island Ortygia, near Syracuse; by 
metonymy for the 'Sicilian Muse' (v. 133), or the fountain-nymph, 
Arethusa, presiding over pastoral poetry, which originated in Sicily, and 
was consummated by Theocritus, a native of Syracuse. Virgil, in the 
opening of his fourth Eclogue, PoUio, invokes the Sicilian Muses (Sice- 
lides Musse, pauUo majora canamus), and in his tenth Eclogue, Gallus, he 
invokes the fountain nymph, Arethusa, to aid him in his last pastoral song 
. (Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem) ; and thou honoured 
flood, smooth-sliding Mincius : Mantua, Virgil's birth town, or what he 
regarded as such (he was born in the neighboring village of Andes), 
is on an island in the river Mincius, a tributary of the Po; honoured 
flood . . . crowned zvith vocal reeds : i.e. by reason of its association 
with Virgil, and his fame as a pastoral poet. Lord Tennyson, in his ode 
'To Virgil, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth 
centenary of Virgil's death,' speaks of him as a pastoral poet, in the fourth 
and fifth stanzas : 

' Poet of the happy Tityrus 

piping underneath his beechen bowers; 
Poet of the poet-satyr 

whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; 



LYCIDAS 285 

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying 

in the bhssful years again to be, 
Summers of the snakeless meadow, 

unlaborious earth and oarless sea.' 

88. fny oat proceeds : the suspended pastoral strain is resumed, 

89. Herald of the Sea : Triton, with ' wreathed horn.' 

90. in Neptune'' s plea : Neptune's is an objective genitive : in 
defence, or exculpation of Neptune. This explanation of *plea' is sup- 
ported by its use in all other places in Milton's poetry : 

* So spake the fiend, and with necessity. 
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.' 

— P. Z., iv. 394. 
' to make appear, 
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance.' — P. Z., x. 30. 

' Yet of another plea bethought him soon.' — P. R., iii. 149. 

' Weakness is thy excuse, . . . 
All wickedness is weakness; that plea therefore 
With God or man will gain thee no remission.' 

- S. A., 834. 

Keightley explains that Triton ' came, deputed by Neptune, to hold a 
judicial inquiry into the affair. We have the Pleas of the Crown and the 
Court of Common Pleas.' 

96. Hippotades : a patronymic of ^olus, god of the winds. 

98. the level brine : in v. 167, 'the watery floor.' 

99. Sleek Panope : one of the sea-nymphs, daughter of Nereus; 
the name (in Gk. X\.av6-K'f]) seems to indicate that the nymph is a personi- 
fication of a smooth sea (' level brine ') which affords z. full view all around 
to the horizon. The voyager on such a sea is ' ringed with the azure 
world.' The epithet ' sleek ' is in accord with the personification. 

icx>-i02. It was that fatal : these verses are not part of the answer 
which Hippotades brings; the poet speaks in his own person. 

lOi. Built in the eclipse: eclipses were believed to shed malign in- 
fluences (see ' P. L.,' i. 594-599) ; one of the ingredients of the witches' 
hell-broth, in * Macbeth,' is ' slips of yew, slivered in the moon's eclipse ' ; 
rigged with curses dark : ' with,' of course, though this has been 
questioned, expresses accompaniment; to understand it as instrumental, 
makes a crazy hyperbole of the phrase. 



286 NOTES 

I02. sacred head : King was dedicated to the holy office of the min- 
istry. He is made to represent, in the poem, a pure priesthood. 

103-107. Next Camus : Dr. Masson's note, and the included quoted one, 
are the most acceptable of the numerous notes on this passage : ' Camus, 
the tutelary genius of the Cam, and of Cambridge University, appeared as 
one of the mourning figures; for had not King been one of the young 
hopes of the University? The garb given to Camus must doubtless l^e 
characteristic, and is perhaps most succinctly explained by a Latin note 
vi'hich appeared in a Greek translation of " Lycidas " by Mr. John Plumptre 
in 1797. "The mantle," said Mr. Plumptre in this note, "is as if made 
of the plant ' river-sponge,' which floats copiously in the Cam; the bonnet 
of the river-sedge, distinguished by vague marks traced somehow over the 
middle of the leaves, and serrated at the edge of the leaves after the 
fashion of the aX, aX of the hyacinth." It is said that the flags of the Cam 
still exhibit, when dried, these dusky streaks in the middle, and apparent 
scrawUngs on the edge; and Milton (in whose Ms. ^^ scrawled o^er" was 
first written for " inwrought ") is supposed to have carried away from the 
" arundifer Camus ^^ (' Eleg.,' i. ii) this exact recollection. He identifies 
the edge-markings with the al, al (Alas! Alas!) which the Greeks fancied 
they saw on the leaves of the hyacinth, commemorating the sad fate of 
the Spartan youth from whose blood that flower had sprung. ' 

lo'j. pledge : child; \jaX.. pignus amoris. 

109. The Pilot: St. Peter, whom, it must be understood, Milton 
presents as * the type and head of true episcopal power,' to which he was 
in no wise opposed. He wished the bishop to be a truly spiritual overseer, 
as the word signifies. 

114. Enow: an archaic plural form of 'enough'; 'hellish foes 
enow.' — P. L.y ii. 504; ' evils enow to darken all his goodness.' — Antony 
and Cleopatra, I. iv. II. 

117. to scramble at the shearer's feast: to scramble for and gobble 
up fat benefices. 

118. the zvorthy bidden guest: one who has been truly called to 
serve the Church. 

119. Blind mouths: 'mouths' is used, by synecdoche, for gluttons, 
as the five preceding verses show. Ruskin's explanation of the phrase, in 
his ' Sesame and Lilies,' is very ingenious, but it is not likely that Milton 
meant it to have such significance. ' Those two monosyllables,' he says, 
' express the precisely accurate contraries of right character in the two 
great offices of the Church, — those of Bishop and Pastor. A Bishop means 



LYCIDAS 287 

a person who sees. A Pastor means one who feeds. The most unbishoply 
character a man can have is, therefore, to be Blind. '1 he most unpastoral 
is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed, — to be a Mouth. Take the two 
reverses together, and you have " Wind mouths." ' 

Milton makes here his first onset upon the ecclesiastical abuses of the 
time. He was destined to make, not long after, fiercer onsets in his 
polemic prose writings. 

120. the least : connect with ' aught else ' rather than * belongs.' 

122. What recks it them : what does it concern them; They are sped : 
they've been successful in obtaining rich livings. 

123. list: please; in earHer English generally used impersonally with 
a dative; ivhen they list: i.e. when it suits them, not otherwise. They 
don't act from any sense of duty. 

123, 124. their lean and fiashy songs grate : their wretched sermons are 
wretchedly delivered with the emphasis of insincerity. Masson explains 
'scrannel,' 'screeching, ear-torturing.' 

126. wind and the rank ?}iist they draw: i.e. the mere wind of 
some sermons and the poisonous doctrines of others, which their flocks 
inhale and drink in, and then impart the resulting spiritual disease to 
others. 

128, 129. the grim wolf: generally understood to mean the Church of 
Rome. Bishop Newton, who first understood the passage to have refer- 
ence to Archbishop Laud's ' privily introducing popery ' afterward gave 
the alternative explanation, * besides what the popish priests privately per- 
vert to their religion,' which Masson conclusively supports in his * Life of 
Milton,' and adopts in his note on the passage in his edition of the * Poeti- 
cal Works'; the 'privy paw' doesn't suit Archbishop Laud, who did 
everything above-board. 

130, 131. But that tivo-handed engine: see my explanation of these 
verses in the Introductory Remarks. 

132. Return, Alpheus : he invokes the return of the pastoral Muse 
when the dread denouncing voice of St. Peter has ceased. Alpheus, the 
chief river of Peloponnesus, flowing through Arcadia and Elis. The 
river-god loved the nymph Arethusa, of Elis, whom, in her flight from him, 
Diana changed into a fountain which was directed by the goddess under 
the sea to the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse. The river followed under 
sea and united with the fountain. See note on v. 85. 

136. iise : frequent. 

138. whose : refers to ' valleys ' ; the swart star : understood by editors 



288 NOTES 

to mean the dog-star Sirius. But it may mean, and I think it does, the 
day-star, the sun. See v. i68; 'diurnal star.' — P. L., x. 1069; szuari : 
used causatively; sparely looks: i.e. by reason of the shades. 

139. quaint enafnelled eyes: flowers of curious structure and of 
variegated glossy colors (?); the words are more enjoyable than distinctly 
intelligible; in the * P. L.,' ix. 529, it is said of the serpent : 

* oft he bowed 
His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck, fawning.' 

Here ' enamelled ' appears to mean variegated and glossy; so in Arcades : 

* O'er the smooth enamelled green.' 

141. purple : an imperative, to be construed with 'throw.' 

142. rathe : early, soon ; the old positive form of ' rather,' sooner. 
Tennyson uses the word in his ' In Memoriam,' c. ix. 2, 'The men of rathe 
and riper years'; and in ' Lancelot and Elaine,' 339, 'Till rathe she rose,' 
etc.; that forsaken dies : forsaken by the sun. 

153. with false surmise : i.e. that we have the body of Lycidas with us. 

158. monstrous world : the world of sea-monsters. 

159. moist: tearful. 

160. the fable of Bellerus old : i.e. the scene of the fable. 
161-163. Where the great Vision : see Introductory Remarks. 
164. O ye dolphins : an allusion to the story of Arion. 

idd. your sorrow: used objectively, he who is the object of your 
sorrow. ' Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead.' — Shelley'' s Adonais. 

167. watery floor : what is called the level brine, v. 98; 'the shin- 
ing levels of the lake.' — Tennyson'' s Morte d'' Arthur, suggested, no doubt, 
by the classical cequora. 

169-171. repairs his drooping head: Milton, in these lines, compares 
great things with small {parvis componit magna) ; if they are * considered 
curiously,' the sun makes his toilet on rising from his ocean bed ! 

172. sunk . . . mounted: any one reading this verse for the first 
time would be likely to get the impression that these words are participles ; 
this would not be the case if ' sunk ' were ' sank,' originally the distinctive 
singular form of the preterite, ' sunk ' being plural; AS. sane, suncon. 

173. Him that walked the waves: a beautiful designation of the 
Saviour, in accord with the occasion of the poem; and so St. Peter is 
designated as ' the Pilot of the Galilean Lake.' 

174. along: beside. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 289 

176. unexpressive : inexpressible. 

184. thy large recompense: 'thy' is the personal, not the possessive 
adjective pronoun, being used objectively, — the large recompense thou 
hast received, in which is included thy becoming the genius of the shore; 
good: kind, propitious; 'sent by some spirit to mortals good.' — II Petts., 
154- 

185. in that perilous flood : 'in' is more poetic than 'on' or 'o'er' 
would be; 'that perilous flood' is spoken of as a domain in which is in- 
cluded the atmosphere with its winds and storms; so, to wander in the 
desert. 

186. uncouth: used, it is most likely, in its original sense of 
' unknown,' Milton so regarding himself, as a poet; there may be involved 
the idea (supported by the opening lines of the Elegy) of wanting in 
poetic skill and grace. 

188. tender stops: poetic transference of epithet, 'tender' being logi- 
cally applicable to the music ; various quills : used, by metonymy, for 
the varied moods, strains, metres, and other features of the Elegy; 
eager thought : perhaps meant to signify as much as sharp grief; Doric : 
equivalent to pastoral, the great Greek bucolic poets having written in 
the Doric dialect. 

190, 191. had . . . was: note the distinctive use of these auxiliaries, 
the former being used with a participle of a transitive verb, and the latter, 
with that of an intransitive; all the hills : i.e. their shadows. 

192. ttvitched : Keightley explains, 'pulled, drew tightly about him 
on account of the chilUness of the evening.' Jerram explains, ' snatched up 
from where it lay beside him.' 

Samson Agonistes 

P. 187. Aristotle: Greek philosopher, B.C. 384-322; the reference is 
to 'The Poetics,' {Jlepl TrocrjTiKrjs), the greater part of which is devoted to 
the theory of tragedy. 

P. 187. a verse of Euripides : (pdelpovatv Tjdr) XPV<^^' ofxiXlai KaKai, 
' evil communications corrupt good manners ' ; found in the fragments of 
both Euripides and Menander. 

P. 187. Pareus : David Pareus, a German Calvinist theologian and 
biblical commentator, 1 548-1 622. 

P. 187. Dionysius the elder : known as 'the tyrant of Syracuse,' B.C. 
431-367; repeatedly contended for the prize of tragedy at Athens. 
U 



290 NOTES 

P. 187. Seneca (^Lucius Annceus) : Roman Stoic philosopher, B.C. 
3 ?-65 A.D. 

P. 187. Gregory Nazia^izen : saint; a Greek father of the Church, 
Bishop of Constantinople, about 328-389. 

P. 188. Martial : M. Valerius Martialis, Latin epigrammatic poet, 
43-104 A.D. or later. 

P. 188. apolelymenon : *a Greek word, dTroXeXy/i^voi', "loosed from," 
i.e. from the fetters of strophe, antistrophe, or epode; monostrophic 
(^fjLOvb<TT pocpos) meaning literally "single stanzaed," i.e. a strophe with- 
out answering antistrophe. So alloeostrophic {aKKoi.6<TTpo(f>os) signifies 
stanzas of irregular strophes, strophes not consisting of alternate strophe 
and antistrophe.' — John Churton Collins. 

P. 188. beyond the fifth act : 'Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior 
actu Fabula.' — Horace, Ars Poetica, 189. 

P. 191. Agonistes : one who contends as an athlete. 'The term is 
peculiarly appropriate to Samson, for he is the hero of the drama . . . and 
the catastrophe results from the exhibition of his strength in the public 
games of the Philistines.' — J. Churton Collins. 

2. dark : blind. 

6. else : otherwhile, at other times. 

9. draught : appositive to * air.' 

11. day-spring : the dawn. 

12. With this line Samson's soliloquy begins, the attendant having with- 
drawn. 

13. Dagon : god of the Philistines; represented in the 'Paradise Lost' 
(i. 462, 463) as a ' sea-monster, upward man, and downward fish.' See 
I Sam. V. 1-9. 

16. popular : of the people. 

19-21. Restless thoughts, that rush thronging upon me found alone. 

24. Twice by an Angel : see Judges xiii. 

27. charioting, etc. : withdrawing as in a chariot his godlike presence. 

28. and from : and (as) from. 

31. separate: separated, set apart; 'the Holy Ghost said, Separate me 
Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. ' — Acts xiii. 2. 

35. under task : under a prescribed task. 

41. Eyeless, in Gaza, etc.: Thomas De Quincey, in his paper en- 
titled 'Milton vs. Southey and Landor,' remarks : ' Mr. Landor makes one 
correction by a simple improvement in the punctuation, which has a very 
fine effect. . . . Samson says, . . . 



SAMSON AGONISTES 

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves. 



291 



Thus it is usually printed, that is, without a comma in the latter line; 
but, says Landor, ' there ought to be commas after eyeless, after Gaza, after 
;;////.' And why? because thus, 'the grief of Samson is aggravated at 
every member of the sentence.' He (like Milton) was i, blind; 2, in a 
city of triumphant enemies; 3, working for daily bread; 4, herding with 
slaves — Samson literally, and Milton with those whom politically he 
regarded as such.' 

45. but through : except for, had it not been for. 

55. Proudly secure: 'secure' is subjective, free from care or fear; 
'Security is mortals' chiefest enemy.' — Macbeth, III. v. 32. 

56. By weakest subtleties: by those most weak but crafty creatures 
(women), who are not made to rule, but to serve as subordinates to the 
rule of wisdom, the prerogative of man. This was, unfortunately, too 
much Milton's own opinion of women. 

58. zuithal : at the same time. 

62, above my reach : above the reach of my capacity to know. 

63. Suffi,ces : it is sufficient (to know) . 

67. O loss of sight : Milton here speaks virtually in propria persona. 

70. Light the pri^ne work of God. — Gen. i. 3; 'offspring of Heaven 
first born.' — P. L., iii. i. 

75, 76. exposed to daily fraud : Milton here, no doubt, drew from his 
own experiences as a father. 

77. still : ever, always. 

82. all: any; 'without all doubt.' — Henry VIII., YV.\. 113; 'with- 
out all remedy.' — Macbeth, III. ii. 11. 

87. silent: invisible; the epithet which pertains to one sense, that 
of hearing, is transferred to another, that of sight. Lat. luna silens. 

89. Hid in her vaca7it inter lunar cave: the moon is poetically 
represented as hid in a cave, and giving no light (vacant), between her 
disappearance and return, in the sky. 

91, 92. if it be true that light is in the soul : the soul proceeding from 
God, and partaking of the ' Bright effluence of bright essence increate.' 
— P.L.,\\\. 6. 

93. She (the soul) all in every part (of the body). 

95. obvious : literally, in the way of (Lat. obvius), and so, exposed; 
• Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retired.' — P. Z., viii. 504. 



292 NOTES 

io6. obnoxious: subject, liable. 

III. steering : directing their course ; ' With radiant feet the tissued 
clouds down steering.' — Ode on Nativity, 146. 

118. at random: anyway or anyhow; carelessly diffused: passively 
stretched upon the ground, sprawling. 

* His limbs did rest 
Diffused and motionless.' 

— Shelley's Alastor. 

Spenser uses two phrases of similar import ; ' Poured out in loosnesse on 
the grassy ground,' — F. Q., I. vii. 7 ; 'carelessly displaid. ' — F. Q., II. 
V. 32. This use of ' diffused ' is a Latinism. 

* Publica me requies curarum somnus habebat, 
Fusaqne erant toto languida membra toro.' 

— Ovid, Ex Ponto, III. iii. 7, 8. 
122. weeds : garments, clothes. 
128. IV/io tore the lion : see Judges xiv. 5, 6. 

132. hammered cuirass: the cuirass was originally of leather; here 
of metal, formed with the hammer. 

133. Chalybean-tempered steel: having the temper of steel wrought 
by the Chalybes, an ancient Asiatic people dwelHng south of the Black 
Sea, and famous as workers in iron; hence, Lat. chalybs, steel, Gr. 
xd\v\f/. Dr. Masson accents * Chalybean ' on the third syllable; it seems 
rather to have the accent here on the second. 

134. Adamanteati proof : having the strength of adamant. 
136. itisupportably : irresistibly. 

139. his lion ramp: his leap or spring as of a lion. In the descrip- 
tion of the sixth day of the creation (/•. Z,, vii. 463-466) it is said of the 
lion, 

' now half appeared 
The tawny lion, pawing to get free 
His hinder parts, then springs, as broke from bonds, 
And rampant shakes his brinded mane.' 

144. foreskins : uncircumcised Philistines. 

145. Ramath-lechi : see Judges xv. 17. 

147. Azza : Gaza. See Judges xvi. 3. The form Azzah is used 
Deut. ii. 23. 

148. Hebron, seat of giants old : for Hebron was the city of Arba, 



SAMSON AGONISTES 



293 



the father of Anak, and the seat of the Anakims. — Josh. xv. 13, 14. 

* And the Anakims were giants, which come of the giants.' — Num. xiii. 
2,'^. Neivton. 

149. No journey of a sabbath-day : Hebron was about thirty miles 
distant from Gaza; a sabbath-day's journey was but three-quarters of a 
mile. 

150. Like zvhom : Atlas. 

157. complain : directly transitive, in the sense of lament, bewail. 
163. visual beam : ray of light, the condition of seeing. 

* the air, 
No where so clear, sharpen'd his visual ray.' 

— P. Z., iii. 620. 

* then [Michael] purged with euphrasy and rue 
The visual nerve, for he [Adam] had much to see.' 

— P. Z., xi. 415. 

165. Since man on earth : a Latinism like Post urbem conditam^ 
of frequent occurrence in Milton's poetry; 'Never since created man.' — 
P. L., i. 573; ' After the Tuscan mariners transformed.' — Comus, 48. 

169. pitch : usually pertains to height; here to depth. 

172. the sphere of fortune : a constantly revolving globe. 

173. Put thee : construe with 'him,' third line above: 'For him I 
reckon not in high estate . . . But thee.' 

181. Eshtaol and Zora : see Josh, xix, 41. 

185. tumours: perturbations, agitations; so tumor is used in Latin: 

* Cum tumor animi resedisset; ' ' Erat in tumore animus.' 

190. superscription : a continuation of the metaphor in preceding 
line. 

191-193. In prosperous days they swarm : perhaps from Milton's own 
experience after the Restoration. — Masson. 

207. mean : moderate, as compared with his physical strength. 

208. This : i.e. wisdom. 

209. drove me transverse: a continuation of the metaphor in 198- 
200. So in ' P. L.,' iii. 488 : 

* A violent cross wind from either coast 

Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues away 
Into the devious air.' 



294 -, NOTES 

212. pretend they ne'^er so wise : claim they to be never so wise; the 
idea of falseness is not in the word ' pretend ' as in its present use. 
219. The first I saio at Timna : Judges xiv. 

221. The daughter of an infidel: Milton probably had his first wife, 
Mary Powell, in his mind, whose family was infidel to his own political 
creed. 

222. motioned: proposed. 

223. intimate : inward, inmost. 

228. fond : foolish, 

229. vale of Sorec : a valley (and stream) between Askelon and Gaza, 
not far from Zorah. — Judges xvi. 4. 

230. specious : good appearing. 

235, 236. vanquished with a peal of words : a metaphor drawn from the 
storming of a fortress. A similar metaphor is found in ' i Henry VI.,' 
III. iii. 79, 80 : 

*I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers 
Have battered me like roaring cannon-shot.' 

237. provoke : to call forth, to challenge. Lat. provocare. 

241. That fault I take not on me : 'with an occult reference, perhaps, 
to the conduct of those in power in England after Cromwell's death, when 
Milton still argued vehemently against the restoration of the Stuarts.' — 
Masso)i. 

247. ambition : used literally, going about in the service of some 
object, canvassing. Lat. ambitio. 

248. spuke loud : proclaimed. 
253. Etham : Judges xv. 8, 9. 

257. harass: ravaging. 

258. on so77ie conditions : Judges xv. 11-13. 

263. a trivial weapon : the jawbone of an ass. Judges xv. 15. 

268-276. But what more oft : a plain reference to the state of England, 
and to Milton's own position there, after the Restoration. — Masson. 

271. strenuous: ardently maintained. Newton quotes a similar 
sentiment from the oration of ^'Emilius Lepidus, the consul, to the Roman 
people, against Sulla: * Annuite legibus impositis; accipite otium cum 
servitio; ' — but for myself — 'potior visa est periculosa libertas quieto 
servitio.' 

278. How Succoth : Judges viii. 4-9. 

282. how ingrateful Ephraim : Judges xi. 15-27. 



SAMSON' AGOAUSTES 295 

287-289. sore battle : the battle fought by Jephthah with Ephraim. 
Judges xii. 4-6. 

291. mine: my people. 

297, 298. For of such doctrine : ' Observe the peculiar effect of con- 
tempt given to the passage by the rapid rhythm and the sudden introduc- 
tion of a rhyme in these two lines.' — Afasson. 

305. They ravel tnore, still less resolved : they become more con- 
fused, and ever less disentangled. 

327. careful step: 'careful' is used subjectively; a step indicating 
that Manoa was full of care, deeply concerned. Chaucer so uses 
' dredeful ' : 

'With dredeful foot thanne stalketh Palamoun.' 

— Knight'' s Tale, 1479. 

333. uncouth: literally, unknown; strange, with the idea of the 
disagreeable. 

334. gloried : a participial form derived from the noun. 

335. informed: directed. 

343. Angels': I have followed Keightley in making 'Angels' a 
genitive. 

345. Duelled : it was an individual fight on the part of Samson. 

354. as : that; this use of ' as ' after ' so ' and ' such ' is not uncommon 
in Shakespeare and Bacon, and the later literature. 

* I feel such sharp dissension in my breast. 
Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear. 
As I am sick with working of my thoughts.' 

— I Henry VI., V. v. 86. 
364. miracle : wonder, admiration. 

373. Appoint: 'Do not you arrange or direct the disposition of 
heavenly things.' — Keightley. 
383. Of Timna : Judges xiv. 

394. my capital secret : a play on the word ' capital ' is, no doubt, 
designed; chief secret and the secret of his strength depending upon his 
hair. 

433. That rigid score : rigorous account or reckoning. 

434. This day : Judges xvi. 23. 
453. idolists : idolaters. 

455. prepense : disposed. 

466. provoked : called forth, challenged. 



296 NOTES 

499, 500. a sin that Gentiles : supposed to be an allusion to Tantalus, 
who divulged the secrets of the gods. 

503. ditt act not: take not a part in thy own affliction; 'thy' is 
objective : in afflicting thyself. 

505. self-preservation bids : i.e. that thou do so. 

509. his debt : debt to him. 

516. -what offered means : those offered means which. 

528. blazed: trumpeted abroad. 

531. affront : a front to front encounter. The word occurs as a noun 
but once in Shakespeare : 

* There was a fourth man in a silly habit, 
That gave the affront with them.' — Cymb., V. iii. 87. 

i.e. faced or confronted the enemy (Rolfe). 

533. venereal trains : snares of Venus, or love. 

537. me : an ethical dative? or it may be the usual dative. 

539. Then turned me out ridiculous : an object of ridicule, a laugh- 
ing-stock. 

549. rod: ray of light. 

552. turbulent : used causatively. 

563-572. Now blind, disheartened : almost literally autobiographic. 

569. robustious: Masson explains 'full of force'; but 'vain monu- 
ment of strength ' in the following verse, does not seem to support this 
explanation. 

581. caused a fountain : Judges xv, 18, 19. 

590-598. All otherwise : this pathetic passage is quite literally autobio- 
graphic, if 'race of shame' be excepted; but even this might be under- 
stood, in Milton's case, to be used objectively. 

599. suggestions : the word has a stronger meaning than at present : 
inward promptings. 

' why do I yield to that suggestion 
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair 
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs 
Against the use of nature?' — Macbeth, I. iii. 34. 

604. hoiv else : elsewise, otherwise. 

612. all his (torment's) fierce accidents: all the fierce things which 
fall to, or happen to, body or mind. 

613. her: the mind's. 

615. answerable: corresponding. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 



297 



624. apprehensive : taking hold of, mentally; having the power of 
conception or perception, 

627. ?nedicinal : accented on the penult. 

628. snowy Alp : used generically for any snowy mountain. 
633. /lis : Heaven's. 

635. message: messenger, angel. 

637. amain : vigorously. 

643. provoked : called forth, challenged. 

645. to be repeated : to be again and again made the subject of their 
cruelty or scorn. — Masson. 

650. speedy death : an appositive of * prayer.' 

658. much persuasion : to be construed with ' many are the sayings,' 
etc., and 'much persuasion (is) sought.' 

662. dissonant mood from : mood dissonant from his complaint. 

677. Heads : appositive to * the common rout of men.' 

683. their highth of 7ioon : the meridian of their glory. 

684. Changest thy countenance : a similar expression, but with a dif- 
ferent meaning, to that in Job xiv. 20 : 'Thou changest his (man's) 
countenance, and sendest him away.' 

686. or them to thee of service : or of service (from) them to thee. 

690. Unseemly : unbecoming in human eye ; ' falls ' is a noun in 
apposition to the preceding thought, ' thou throwest them lower than thou 
didst exalt them high.' 

695-702. Or to the unjust tribunals : there has been an occult reference 
all through this chorus to the wreck of the Puritan cause by the Restora- 
tion; but in these lines the reference becomes distinct. Milton has the 
trials of Vane and the Regicides in his mind. He himself had been in 
danger of the law; and, though he had escaped, it was to a 'crude (pre- 
mature) old age,' afflicted by painful diseases from which his temperate 
life might have been expected to exempt him. — Masson. 

699. deformed : attended with deformity. 

700. crude: premature. 

701. disordinate : inordinate, irregular; yet suffering without cause. 
707. What: the word here, perhaps, means 'why.' The following 

question seems to support this. 

715. Tarsus: z.<?. Tarshish, which Milton avoided from his dislike to 
the sound sh. He seems to have agreed with those who thought that 
Tarshish was Tarsus in Cilicia, instead of Tartessus in Spain. In the Bible, 
'ships of Tarshish' signify large sea-going vessels in general; the iles, 



298 NOTES 

etc. : i.e. the isles and coasts of Greece and Lesser Asia ; Javan (pr. 
Yawa>i) is 'laoves, "icoi/es, the lonians. As these were the best known 
of the Greeks in the south, their name was given to the whole people, 
just as the Greeks themselves called all the subjects of the king of 
Persia, Medes ; Gadire : TaSeipa, Gades, Cadiz. — Keightley. 

'ji'j. bravery : finery, ornament; trim : shipshape, in good order. 

719. hold them play : keep them in play. 

720. An amber scent : an ambergris scent. 
731. makes address : .prepares. 

732 et seq. 'The student will notice how thoroughly Euripidean the 
whole of the following scene is, not merely in the fact that two of the 
dramatis person(B are pitted dialectically against one another, but in 
the cast of the language and in the quality of the sentiment.' — John 
Churton Collitis. 

748. hycEua : ' a creature somewhat like a wolf, and is said to 
imitate a human voice so artfully as to draw people to it, and then devour 
them. 

" 'Tis thus the false hyaena makes her moan. 
To draw the pitying traveller to her den; 
Your sex are so, such false dissemblers all." 

— Thomas Otway''s Orphan, A. ii. 

Milton applies it to a woman, but Otway to the men.' — Nexuton. 

760, 761. not to reject the penitent : an obvious allusion to Milton's for- 
giveness of his first wife, after her two years' abandonment of hnn. 

803. That 7)iade for me: helped my purpose (z.^. to keep you from 
leaving me as you did her at Timna). 

842. Or : Keightley suspects that ' or ' should be * and ' here, as 
* or ' does not connect well with what precedes. 

868. respects: considerations; ' there's the respect that makes calamity 
of so long life.' — Hamlet, III. i. 68, 69. 

906. peals : peals of words. See 1. 235. 

932, 933. trains, gins, toils: these words all express modes of entrap- 
ping any one or anything. 

934. thy fair enchanted cup : an allusion to Circe and the Sirens. 

948. gloss : comment, construe. 

950. To thine : compared to thine. 

988, 989. in mount Ephraim Jael : Judges iv. 5. * 

990. Smote Sisera : Judges v. 26. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 299 

1016. thy riddle : Judges xiv. 12-19; in one day or seven: connect 
with ' harder to hit.' 

1018. If any of these, or all: if it be any or all of these qualities, 
virtue, wisdom, valor, etc., that can win or long inherit (possess) woman's 
love, the Timnian bride had not so soon preferred thy paranymph (brides- 
man). Judges xiv., xv. 

1022. Nor both : nor both wives; disallied : severed. 

I02i^. for that : because. 

1025-1060. Is it for that such outward ornament : the ideas expressed 
in these verses, it must be admitted, were too much Milton's own, in 
regard to woman, as his Divorce pamphlets show. 

1030. affect: like. 

1037. Once joined : i.e. in marriage. 

1038. far within : a thorn in the flesh, a cleaving mischief, deep 
beneath defensive armor; these may be an allusion to the poisoned shirt 
sent to Hercules by his wife Deianira. 

1048. combines : i.e. with her husband. 

1057. lour : frown, or look sullen. 

1062. contracted : drawn together, gathered. 

1068. Harapha of Gath : see under 1079. 

1069. pile : the giant's body is spoken of as a pile, or large, proudly 
towering building. 

1073. habit: dress. 

1075. His fraught: the freight of commands or whatever else he is 
charged with. The word seems to be used contemptuously. 

1076. chance : fate. 

1079. Alen call me Harapha : * No such giant is mentioned by name 
in Scripture; but see 2 Sam. xxi. 16-22. The four Philistine giants men- 
tioned there are said to be sons of a certain giant in Gath called " the 
giant"; and the Hebrew word for "the giant" there is Kapha or Hara- 
pha. Milton has appropriated the name to his fictitious giant, whom he 
makes out in the sequel (1248, 1249) to be the actual father of that brood 
of giants.' — Masson. 

1080. Og, or Anak : see Deut. iii. ii, ii. 10, and Gen. xiv. 5. 

1081. Thou know'^st me now : so in ' P. L.,' iv. 830 : 

* Not to know me argues yourselves unknown.' 
109 1, taste : to make trial of; Fr. later, OF. taster ; 



300 NOTES 

*he now began 
To taste the bow, the sharp shaft took, tugg'd hard,' etc. 

— Chap mail's Horner^ s Od., xxi. 211. 

1092. single me : challenge me to single combat. — Keightley. 

1093. Gyves : handcuffs. 

1 105. In thy hand : in thy power. 

1 109. assassinated : cruelly abused or maltreated. The word is so used 
in Milton's * Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' Book I. c. xii. 

1 1 13. close-banded: secretly leagued. — Dr. Johnson. 

in6. without feigned shifts: without any pretended considerations 
for my blmdness. 

1 1 18. Or rather flight : a cutting phrase, implying that otherwise the 
giant may seek safety in flight, if they were not in ' some narrow place 
enclosed.' 

1 120, 1 121. brigandine : coat of armor for the body; habergeon: 
armor for neck and shoulders; Vant- brace : {avant bras) armor for the 
arms; greaves : leg armor; gauntlet: {gant) glove of mail. 

1 1 22. A weaver'' s beam: I Sam. xvii. 5-7 was in Milton's mind 
in lines 1119-1122. 'And he [Goliath] had an helmet of brass upon 
his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; . . . And he had 
greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. 
And the staff of his spear was hke a weaver's beam;' . . . 

1 132. had not spells: 'taken from the ritual of the combat in chiv- 
alry. When two champions entered the lists, each took an oath that he 
had no charm, herb, or any enchantment about him.' — T. Warton, 

1 164. boisterous: strong, powerful? 

1 1 69. thine: thy people? 

1 181. Tongue- doughty : tongue -valiant. 

1 1 86. thirty jnen : Judges xiv. 19. 

1 195. politician lords : lords of your state. 

1 197. spies: Judges xiv. 10-18. 'Milton follows Jewish tradition 
in supposing the thirty bridal friends there mentioned to have been spies 
appointed by the Philistines.' — Masson. 

1202. wherever chanced : i.e. wherever by chance met with. 

1 219. not all your force : the ellipsis is, would have disabled me. 

1220. These shifts : the charges made by Harapha of his being *a 
murderer, a revolter, and a robber'; appellant : challenger. 

1223. enforce : demand of strength. 



SAMSON AGONISTES 3OI 

1224. With thee: (fight) with thee ? 

1 23 1. Baal-zebicb : the god of Ekron. 2 Kings i. 16. 

1238. bulk without spirit vast : vast bulk without spirit. 

1242. Astaroth : the Phoenician goddess. 

1243. braveries : bravadoes. 
1266. niine : my end. 
1274. Hardy: bold. 

1292. Either of these : 'might ' or 'patience.' 

1309. remark him : plainly mark him. 

13 1 7. heartened: encouraged, emboldened. 

1334. Myself: regard myself, do you say? No, my conscience and 
internal peace I regard. Keightley and Masson both place an ( ! ) instead 
of an (? ). But 'myself requires to be uttered with an inquiring %ViX^^x\%t, 
and should be followed by an (? ). 

1346. stoutness: firm refusal. 

1369. the sentence holds: the sentence, 'outward acts defile not,' 
holds good, where outward force constrains. 

1375. '^^^^^'^^^ ■' represents what precedes, ' If I obey ... set God 
behind.' 

1377. dispense with: pardon. 'Milton here probably had in view 
the story of Naaman the Syrian, begging a dispensation of this sort from 
Elisha, which he seemingly grants him.' See 2 Kings v. 18, 19. — 
Thyer. 

1397. as: used after 'such' to introduce a result, instead of 'that,' 
as in present English; not uncommon in Shakespeare, Bacon, and other 
writers of the time and later. 

1399. to try : to test. 

1408. Yet this be sure : looks back to ' I am content to go.' 

1418-1422. Lords are lordliest : ' in this passage may be detected a refer- 
ence to England in Milton's time.' — Masson. 

1435. ^'^^^^ Spirit that first rushed on thee: 'a young lion roared 
against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and 
he rent him as he would have rent a kid.' — Judges xiv. 5, 6. 

1450. / had no will : i.e. to go thither. 

1455. That hope : to partake that hope with thee would much rejoice us. 

1461-1471. Some fnuch averse I found : the different shades of feeling 
among the men in power in England after the Restoration may be sup- 
posed to be glanced at in this passage : obstinate and revengeful Royalism, 
strongest among the High Church party; and so on, — Masson. 



302 



NOTES 



1470. The rest: to remit the rest was magnanimity. 

147 1, convenient : fitting. Lat. conveniens, coming together. 
1474. Their once great dread: former object of their great dread. 

1 5 1 2. whole inhabitation : all the inhabitants of the world, as is 
indicated by ' universal groan.' 

1 5 14. ruin : down crashing. 

1529, dole: grief, sorrow; 'dealing dole' is not a case of the cog- 
nate accusative, as it is understood by some critics. 

1538. baits : literally, stops for' refreshment; in a general sense, tarries. 

1 55 1, concerned in: connected with. 

1554. needs: is necessary. 

1557, tell lis the sum : the main fact, defer what accompanied it. 

1 58 1, glorious: used proleptically. 

1594. eye-zvitness : ocular testimony. 

1599. high street : main or principal street; so, highway, high seas. 

1608. sort: rank. 

1610. batiks: benches. 

idig. cataphracts : heavy-armed cavalry soldiers, whose horses as 
well as themselves were covered with a complete suit of mail armor. 
Gr. /car a</)pa/cTos, covered; spears: spearmen. 

1621. rifted: split. 

1625. assayed : tried. 

1626. still: ever. 

1671. And fat regorged: Keightley explains, 'and the fat of bulls 
and goats was regorged by them who had eaten too much.' This, along 
with the preceding and the following verse, gives a Miltonic sublimity of 
the disgusting to the passage. But the prefix 're-' is, perhaps, simply 
intensive, and ' regorged ' may mean gorged, or swallowed, voraciously. 
The construction is, ' And (while they, ' they ' being implied in * their,' 
above) fat regorged of bulls and goats, . . . Among them he (our living 
Dread) a spirit of phrenzy sent.' 

1674. Silo: Shiloh. Joshua xviii. i, Judges xxi. 19. 'He probably 
terms it bright, on account of the Shekinah which was" supposed to rest on 
the ark.' — Keightley. 

1688. and thought extinguished quite: this phrase is understood by 
some as a nominative absolute (the Latin ablative absolute), thought hav- 
ing been quite extinguished; but 'thought' is rather a past participle 
referring to ' he ' : thought to be entirely extinguished. 

1692. as an evening dragon came: 'he' (Samson) is the subject of 



SAMSON AGONISTES 303 

'came'; he came among the Philistines as an evening dragon comes on 
tame farmhouse fowl, but afterward bolted his cloudless thunder on their 
heads, as an eagle. 

1699. that self-begotten bird : the phoenix. 

1700. embost : enclosed in a wood. 

1 702. erewhile : for some time before ; holocaust : a whole burnt 
offering. 

1703. teemed : brought forth. 

1704. revives: the subject is 'Virtue,' 1697. 

1707. A secular bird : a bird living for generations. Lat. scecula. 

1 71 3. sons of Caphtor : the Philistines, 'originally of the island Caphtor 
or Crete. A colony of them settled in Palestine and there went by the 
name of Philistim.' — Meadozvcourt, in Todd^s Var. Ed. of Milton. 

1733. Home to his father'' s house : see Judges xvi. 31. 

1753. band them : unite themselves. 

1755. acquist : acquisition. 



Aims of Literary Study 

BY 

Professor HIRAM CORSON 

Cornell University 



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THE BASIS 



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The Voice and Spiritual 
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Cornell Univei'sity 



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